Of Ceremonies, Stampedes and Assassins
by SWFicWriters
Summary: Sequel to 'Trouble with Scorchers'. Eeth and Raven are about to embark on there first mission to Fenesteer. They have unexpected company. Warning: This story contains frequent spanking scenes of a non-sexual, disciplinary nature and occasional coarse language. Don't enjoy, don't read. We do not endorse the spanking of real children. This is fiction.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey to all who have followed us, and to any new faces. During the past months, we've been editing stories that originated as online role-playing, situated in our alternative Star Wars universe – well, mainly the universe of Episode One, pretending that the tragedy of the Great Jedi Purge never happened! Ahem. In this, the third story that focuses on Eeth and Raven, our team embarks on their first mission, to the planet of Fenesteer, with some unexpected company tagging along.

There are approximately twenty-five stories pre-written in this series. Although each story can stand alone, it might be a better reading experience to start from the beginning, with our story "Of Padawans Fake and True".

And now for the housekeeping. We realise that our master characters, especially Eeth, will at times come across as harsh to some. However, please keep in mind that this is a fictional universe in which teenagers with extraordinary, potentially lethal abilities are raised to do an incredibly hard, dangerous and responsible job. Their masters feel an obligation to keep them in line in order to protect them and others by various types of discipline, including corporal punishment, i.e., spanking with the hand and different implements. And sometimes, they will need to dispense with the cuddling and tell their charges to do their duty. These are teenagers, after all, not small children. There will always be times to offer comfort and moments of closeness between master and padawan, but they might sometimes have to wait. Plus, masters might have their own issues … which is certainly true for Eeth. His journey with Raven is a learning experience for him as much as for his padawan. Fortunately for our padawans, our master characters have near-magical healing abilities at their disposal, allowing us to indulge our preference for strict discipline.

We do realise that this will not be everybody's cup of tea. We assure you, though, that there's always character development and growth involved in our story arcs. If you like our stories (or if you don't like them), let us know in a review; we love to hear what you guys think. Okay, so here we go. Enjoy.

* * *

"Why does Fenesteer require Jedi representatives at their king's crowning ceremony?" Raven asked Eeth as she followed the hovercart home from the commissary where they had acquired clothing and gear for their first mission to Fenesteer.

"For a number of reasons, most of them being purely diplomatic," Eeth replied. "The Republican Senate, of course, sends a representative whenever a new ruler is invested on a member planet. For important planets or those that have close relations with the Jedi Order, the Jedi often send representatives as well. Part of the reason the Jedi have been requested to attend this particular occasion, however, has to do with the strong political opposition against the future king. Fenesteer, like a number of other planets, has recently replaced hereditary monarchy with a system where the king is elected – he is more of a president than a king in this respect, but with many traditional duties and ceremonial functions attributed to him. Part of Fenesteer's upper class was against the change and has supported the old crown prince who would have granted them extensive privileges in exchange. Nevertheless, the elections have taken place and the new king has been elected and will be enthroned on Wednesday. Both the Jedi Order and the Republican Senate are strongly supportive of the new political system and want to demonstrate their support. We do not think civil unrest will occur, but we think it would be wise to monitor the situation."

That was a lot of information, and Raven took her time digesting it as they made their way back to their quarters. "So, we have to be there for political reasons, but also, maybe there is some civil unrest in which case…" She did a few air punches. "Pew, pew pew! We get to take them out." Raven was still a bit hyped up from re-taking Rool's hand-to-hand exam that morning.

"I did not say that," Eeth said severely. "First of all, in the unlikely event that civil unrest does break out, we will call for reinforcement. I will certainly not set an eleven-year-old padawan loose on armed terrorists. And even if we happened to be forced to take action against someone, our aim would be to arrest them, not to shoot them."

"I suppose setting me on them would be a bit unfair; they wouldn't stand a chance," said Raven with a grin. Since Eeth just raised his eyebrows in response, she wasn't sure he knew that she hadn't been entirely serious. Not entirely.

"So," she pushed on. "We get to sit, and sometimes stand, around in fancy robes. Occasionally we may bow or make small talk, but mostly we don't do much at all? Gee." Raven stopped short from complaining, but only just; any mission was better than no mission at all…

"We will also attend banquets," Eeth said, his face betraying none of his amusement. "And possibly concerts. Apart from that, your summary was adequate."

The banquets Raven couldn't care less about, but the concerts, now that had her attention. Of course, she had no idea what stiff and ceremonial affairs Fenestrian concerts could be!

When they arrived home, Raven went to her bedroom to start packing. To say that she was excited about this was an understatement. Would Fenesteer be green like Naboo, or maybe hot like Mustafar? Lost in her thoughts, one by one, four pairs of socks hit the floor instead of her travel pack. What would the king be like? Eeth had mentioned that they spoke Basic, but were they human? Oh! And she would get to tell Bindi over lunch! A shirt hit the floor and joined the socks.

"Padawan, pay attention to what you are doing," Eeth said drily, appearing in her doorway. He laid a datapad onto her desk. "After lunch," he said, "read this mission briefing and the attached information on Fenesteer, and read them thoroughly. I will talk to you about it during the flight and make sure you will not get us into trouble by accidentally offending anyone. With ceremonial functions, there is always a risk."

At first Raven had no idea what he was talking about, and then she noticed that only half the clothing she'd packed had actually made it into her bag. She scrambled to pick it up and stuffed the gear into her pack. This was Raven's very first mission and she didn't want to mess anything up, starting with her packing! Raven gave Eeth an indignant look at the mention of her accidentally offending someone, but she allowed him to leave without voicing it.

Half an hour later Raven was ready. She emerged from her bedroom, the datapad Eeth had put on her desk tucked under her arm. Reading wasn't exactly her favourite past time, but this was reading for a real mission and that was totally different. She jumped onto their couch, intending to read until it was time for her to meet up with Bindi for lunch.

* * *

"A mission? You only got clearance," Bindi looked at her watch, "three hours ago!"

"Yeah, I know. I guess that is one upside to having a master who is as regimented as Eeth; no time like the present. It's not an exciting mission or anything. The risks are limited to putting on ceremonial robes correctly and managing not to insult people. Anyway, that's what all the secrecy was about." Raven rolled her eyes. "Apparently, Eeth didn't want me to flunk a second time because I was preoccupied with questions or whatever."

"Seriously, Raven, that's cool. Do you know how long you'll be gone?"

Raven shrugged, swallowing a bite of her sandwich. "He didn't say. I don't think for too long. It's only a crowning ceremony, after all. Maybe a week?"

Bindi thought that from what Raven had described that a week sounded about right, too.

They talked about every conceivable (and a lot of inconceivable) outcomes to Raven's mission until her watch went off, signalling that her time was up. "This is it," said Bindi. "The next time I see you you'll be one mission up on me." The Twi'lek didn't really care about such things, but she knew it was important to Raven.

Raven guessed as much and pulled her friend into a hug. "Well, you're a lightsaber up on me, I think that counts for more."

"Next time when you're not going on a mission, we'll go back to the gardens and work on that." Bindi gestured to the weapon that hung at her belt.

Raven smiled. They had meant to be testing that out today, but they had talked for too long. "For sure. See you soon. Uh, unless Master Azlin decides that you've both been complacent for long enough and you're not here when I get back. It could happen."

"It could," Bindi agreed, returning the hug.

Ten minutes later Raven entered their quarters, a spring in her step. "Master?" She could sense his presence in their quarters so he was not at a Council meeting.

"I am here, packing," Eeth called from his room. "Please study your mission briefing now. We will talk about it later, after a workout."

They would have to spend about two days on a spaceship; thus, Eeth wanted to give Raven an opportunity to get rid of some excess energy.

Raven had left her datapad on their coffee table. She grabbed it, lay on the floor, put a socked foot up the wall and read until Eeth called her to leave for their workout. It was, as usual, an extremely thorough couple of hours in which Raven was run ragged. Suffice it to say that the padawan's playfulness and general restless nature were well exhausted by the time they were done.

"What have you learned about Fenesteer?" Eeth asked Raven as they made their way back from the gym.

Raven thought about that for a minute. "It's pretty diverse. The planet has everything from subtropical to frozen regions, seasons in the non-equatorial regions, and magnetic poles. It also has a lot of Force-sensitive plants, some of which aren't found anywhere else in the galaxy."

"True," said Eeth. "What do you know about the people inhabiting the planet?"

"Well, some of them are pricklier than a dune cactus." At receiving a raised brow from Eeth, she elaborated. "They're hung up on etiquette, especially so in aristocratic society. Something as innocent as calling someone silly could be considered a dire insult to a Fenestrian. You might even end up in jail." Raven looked up at Eeth, but he was still in listening mode, so the padawan continued. "They're fanatical about preserving their customs and traditions, and everything has to be done by the book. They don't appreciate individualism and they don't like outsider influences. People from other planets are treated with the utmost respect, but kept at arm's length and not usually trusted."

"What about their relationship with the Jedi Order?" Eeth inquired.

"The Order helped them negotiate their fair trade laws. We also assigned our Agri Corps to help during their development, assisting with primary crop plantations, which now supply 97% of their food. With tension between the aristocrats and the old monarchy over the new political system, I don't know how long the Jedi Order, who is supporting this move, will remain in Fenesteer's favour. We may have the support of the general populace, who are responsible for the newly elected king, but it could depend on how much influence the old have over the new as to whether or not we remain in their good books."

Eeth nodded. "Thus, an important part of our mission will be to bolster our relations with the political elites and the aristocracy," he said. "Fenestrian society has become a lot more open to interplanetary involvement in recent decades, due to rising economic prosperity levels. But as is always the case, there are winners and losers, and there are people who fear change. The crowning ceremony will be a good opportunity for us to meet all the people who matter and to tip the scales in the Jedis' favour. Therefore, while this will not be a particularly action-packed mission, it will certainly be far from pointless."

As it turned out, Eeth was right about the second part of that statement, but entirely wrong about the first…

* * *

They were just about to have a quick breakfast the next morning, an hour before they were supposed to leave, when the comm unit beeped.

"Can you get it, padawan?" Eeth called from the kitchen where he was straining the tea.

"Coming!" Raven called from her bedroom and ran for their comm unit. She skidded to a halt, still sliding as she activated the call button. "Master Granzien." Raven was surprised; she had not heard from the tall, handsome man since handing him the extra assignment he'd assigned her for zoology the cycle before last. She managed a slight bow, clearly curious to know why he was contacting them. "Whatever it was, I didn't do it," she whispered through cupped fingers so that Eeth wouldn't overhear.

Granzien smirked. "Really? I was under the impression that you were the one who was assigned a mission to Fenesteer, alongside her master. Or did I call the wrong people?"

"No, that's us!" Raven replied excitedly. "We leave in," she looked at her watch, "forty-five minutes." Raven still had no idea why he was calling or even how he knew about their mission. "Do you need to talk to my master about something?" Because she was pretty sure he didn't call to rehash zoology. Besides, Eeth was a member of the Jedi Council; it wasn't unheard of for random knights and masters to call after him.

"Yes," said Granzien. "Preferably in the next forty-five minutes."

By now, Eeth had dried his hands and come to stand next to Raven.

"What is it?" he asked, a hint of impatience tingeing his voice. He assumed that Granzien would want them to bring plant samples from Fenesteer. Well, he could just have left them a message!

"I've been assigned to your mission team," Granzien said, "alongside Padawan Sato. I've been tutoring her in working with Force-sensitive plants. Her master had to leave to Katsubah on short notice, which was deemed too dangerous for her to join him. Master Yoda, who was on Council duty last night, decided that this is a good opportunity for her to get some on-site training. So, we are joining you – not so much for the ceremonial parts, more for exploring the flora. I just wanted to let you know so you don't have a heart attack in the hangar or something."

"I would certainly not have had a heart attack," Eeth said with supreme dignity. "But it is good to be … forewarned. Will we be assigned a bigger ship?"

"They weren't sure if one was free," said Granzien. "We'll see, I suppose. It's not that long a trip; only around forty hours."

"I know," said Eeth. "I will see you in the hangar, then."

He ended the call, a slight frown marring his brow.

Raven, who had stuck around to listen, looked up at Eeth, noticing that he now wore his frowny face. "He's right, you probably would have had a heart attack if he just rolled up and joined in at the last minute." The padawan grinned; she did enjoy teasing him.

"No, I would not have," Eeth said severely. "Well. It is what it is. Let us have breakfast quickly. We do not want to be late."

He did hope they had been assigned a larger ship than originally planned; that would offer more opportunity to avoid Granzien. In any case, they would have a pilot. They usually did, for diplomatic functions.

And indeed, in hangar nine, a sleek diplomatic vessel, staffed with two Nautolans, waited for them. It was fairly large; it would certainly do. Granzien and Padawan Sato were nowhere to be seen; but then, Eeth and Raven were five minutes early. Eeth exchanged a few words with the pilots and then motioned for Raven to follow him aboard.

"To our right is the cockpit," he said. "I can show you later. To our left is the passenger area. We will pick our cabins and drop off our luggage there."

It turned out that there were five spacious cabins, each with its private refresher, and there was a large, comfortable-looking lounge. Eeth was wearing a look of slight distaste as he took it all in.

"Padawan, pick a cabin," he said curtly.

"That one." Raven pointed to the cabin closest to the cockpit. She tossed her pack inside the door. She was about to ask Eeth if she could go to the cockpit and watch when the sound of hurried footsteps running up their ramp drew her attention.

"I call dibs on this one," came a voice that Raven did not recognise. She turned to find a slender, female Mirialan padawan, with black hair, deep blue eyes and purple skin, who looked to be about sixteen years old, running towards the room that was closest to their galley area. Raven thought she was quite striking. She had a traditional Mirialan face tattoo, consisting of eight blue diamonds that ran from her forehead to the bridge of her nose and stretched out across the tops of her cheeks. Her long, black hair was pulled back into a twist that sat at the base of her neck, a long padawan braid flying along as she ran.

"Whatever," said Granzien, amused, striding into the corridor at a leisurely pace. He had a slightly shabby backpack slung across his left shoulder and his hands buried in the pockets of his robes.

"Good morning, Eeth," he said. "Raven. Meet Padawan Sato."

Eeth bowed to both of them, rather stiffly. His face was carefully neutral.

Having claimed her room, Sato ran back to meet the others. "Hi, Raven. Hello, Master Eeth." Of course Sato had heard of Eeth Koth before, and she knew of his role on the Jedi Council and his reputation for being strict. Thus, she added a very slight bow to her greeting.

Raven liked this girl. She was energetic, much like herself, and seemed to have a hard time keeping still, although she did a far better job of it than herself. "Can I go watch the take-off?" Raven asked, bouncing from foot to foot.

Eeth frowned. "Calm down, padawan," he admonished her. "Ask the pilots for permission. If they allow it, you may watch."

"I am calm," Raven replied, immediately stilling and copying Sato's pose. The older girl looked as if she too wanted to watch the take-off, but Raven could not be sure. Not wanting to miss out on anything, Raven ran to the cockpit where their two Nautolan pilots were prepping for take-off.

"Take-offs are dull, take my word for it. If you've seen one of them, you've seen a million," commented Sato to the two remaining Jedi. It wasn't that she couldn't understand, she had been much the same herself at Raven's age, but it had worn off quickly for her.

"Nice ship," said Granzien, opening the door to the free cabin next to Sato's and tossing his pack inside. The beds were decidedly larger and softer than what they were used to from the Temple, and what he glimpsed of the refresher looked rather luxurious.

"It would have to be, given that we are diplomats," Eeth said, with a hint of distaste in his voice as he entered the cabin next to Raven's, thereby leaving the cabin between his and Granzien's free. He was not particularly fond of the concept of luxury but had to admit that he could hardly blame Granzien for their choice of vessel. Besides, whatever faults the man might have, self-indulgence was not among them; his battered backpack and the frayed hem of his cloak made that quite clear.

"Do we have any plans for the trip?" asked Granzien, re-emerging from his cabin and poking his head around the door to Eeth's.

"Apart from the usual, such as school work and workouts," said Eeth, "I will want to make sure that my padawan knows as much as she possibly can that could be of diplomatic relevance. Are you going to be part of the ceremonial functions at all?"

Granzien shrugged and handed Eeth a datapad. "Here's a briefing for you concerning myself and Sato," he said. "Essentially, it says we are to spend most of our time hunting for plants. We won't be part of the diplomatic delegation, as such, but we're asked to take part in the crowning ceremony because it would look odd if we arrived alongside you and neglected to attend the biggest event in Fenestrian history. Well, and if you need backup, we'll be there, of course."

"Unlikely," said Eeth. He read through the contents of the datapad quickly, nodded and pocketed it.

"Let me look for my padawan," he said politely and made his way to the cockpit.

Granzien grinned at Sato. "He's charming, I know," he said. "If you want to do yourself any favours, don't break rules when he's around. He's head of his mission team and I suppose that means he won't hesitate to call you to task."

Granzien, himself, was fairly easy-going. He did enforce boundaries when necessary, but he was rather reluctant about it.

"I suppose. I won't give him any reason to, though," Sato replied breezily, as Eeth strode off towards the cockpit. She looked at Granzien with a smug expression. "He'll be too busy with his own padawan; she's only a baby."

"She's obtained mission eligibility," Granzien said in a tone of mild reproval. "As such, she's not a baby. Treat her with respect."

"Of course," said Sato, aiming a reproving look at her mentor.

"Come on," said Granzien, "let's check out the lounge and start discussing the Fenestrian flora. I want you to know what to expect once we arrive there."

Meanwhile, Raven had found the cockpit.

"Pleeeeease. I won't get in the way I swear it. I'll be quiet and you won't even know I'm here."

The Nautolan pilots were not happy about having a kid in their cockpit, but nor did either of them want to deny such enthusiasm. They were both relieved when Eeth entered. "Master Koth, we're on schedule. Departing in five minutes."

"Alright," said Eeth. "My padawan has not been off-planet often and has never watched a take-off before. May she stay?"

He got the sense that the pilots were not thrilled with the idea but did not want to deny Raven the opportunity either. "If you prefer me to, I can stay as well and see to it that my padawan does not get in your way," he proposed.

"Aw, master, I don't need babysitting," Raven protested, although if the looks on their pilots' faces were anything to go by, they rather thought it was a good idea.

Eeth just gave her a pointed look and motioned for her to sit in one of the seats at the back of the cockpits.

Half an hour later, the ship had entered hyperspace. "That was amazing! I bet I can do it myself, I remember all the steps," Raven told Eeth as he escorted her from the cockpit.

"Yes, you doubtlessly learned how to calculate hyperspace coordinates just by watching the pilots for a while," Eeth said drily. "You will learn starship navigation in due course. After having passed a class in starship astrophysics."

"Blasphemy. The words starship and astrophysics should not be uttered in the same sentence," Raven told him as they made their way to where they sensed Granzien and Sato were.

"If they were not, starships would not exist, let alone travel," Eeth said matter-of-factly, garnering a withering look from Raven.

"Go and unpack your things," he continued. "We will be on this ship until tomorrow night. I suppose it offers… adequate comfort. If you happen to like such things." The expression on his face made it quite clear that he did not.

Raven looked down the long, well presented corridor that preceded the entry to her rather spacious and inviting room. "What's a little luxury between friends?" Raven ran her fingers along the plush carpet that lined one of the walls and jumped when static electricity sparked. Alas … Raven was but a mere mortal, and thus, she could not resist the great temptation her oblivious master presented. She shuffled her feet to build up the charge, and then, like a seasoned Sith Lord, extended her fingers and zapped the crap out of Eeth.

"Very funny, padawan," Eeth said icily without bothering to turn around. He had only just been able to keep from flinching but of course he did not show that.

Raven frowned. It was now official; Eeth had absolutely no sense of humour and she was convinced that that part of his brain had been lobotomised at birth.

Ignoring her expression, Eeth continued: "And have you ever thought about who pays for all this luxury? And what other causes all that money could be spent on?"

Raven sighed. Still, she thought it best to at least attempt placating him lest she wind up writing an essay on it. "It's taxes that pay for it, and, those taxes could be spent on other things like medical equipment and the like."

"Yes," said Eeth. "But since we will arrive as diplomats, a certain standard will be expected from us. I will show you around the ship now. After that, we work on mission preparation. Then lunch and a workout. And then you will work on the lessons that next cycle's teachers sent you."

Raven looked up at him, paused and leant into the wall. "We're on a forty-hour trip. Do you intend to fill every hour of that with work?"

"I assume we will need some time for sleeping and eating," Eeth said, straight-faced.

"You assume?" Raven just stared at him.

"Unfortunately, yes," Eeth replied, unperturbed. "The cycle of classes starts tomorrow and you will miss the first week of it. You will have little time to devote to catching up on your studies while we are on Fenesteer. Therefore, you need to make good use of our trip." As a matter of fact, he planned to give Raven the evening off if she did good work. But that remained to be seen.

Raven sighed. She had hoped to get out of class work given that they were on a mission, but apparently this wasn't to be. In fact, she probably had more of it! "Just for the record, I think that having to do school work on top of a mission is cruel, even for you."

"It is not cruel, it is simply your duty," Eeth said in an even tone of voice that indicated he was not altogether pleased. "As it is for any junior padawan leaving on a mission. It would be pointless to have you repeat the entire cycle of classes just because you did not want to spend your free time during space travel productively. Now do you want to see the ship or do you want to keep complaining?"

"I guess. It's probably going to be one of the few things you'll let me do that isn't work," Raven replied and waited for him to lead the way.

Eeth glared at her. "Work is all you will get to do unless you lose the attitude right now," he snapped.

"Aww, c'mon, don't be like that," Granzien drawled. He was emerging from the lounge to fetch a data chip from his room and had overheard Eeth's last threat. "It's her first mission, isn't it?"

"It is," Eeth said icily. "And I fail to see what that has got to do with anything. She will still do her classwork. As will Sato, I presume."

"Yeah, sure," said Granzien, giving Raven a half-smile. "I guess your master didn't forewarn you," he said, "but it really is what missions are like for padawans. At least during the spaceship travel part. Maybe we can have a workout together later on?"

It was not as if Eeth wanted to spend any more time than absolutely necessary with Granzien, but then, it was always useful to know the strengths and weaknesses of one's team mates. Plus, they would need to have a workout anyway and it might do Raven some good to spar against different opponents.

"Alright," he said stiffly. "After lunch."

"Yeah! Now we're talking," Raven wooted; she did like Granzien and now she remembered why.

"Have you been to Fenesteer before?" Raven asked Eeth as he led her down the corridor. She thought it was a good idea to change the subject from how much work she would end up doing, and keep it on safer topics.

"Once," replied Eeth. "It is quite a contrast to Coruscant. Sparely populated, with few big cities. Its richness and influence, of course, derive from the extensive amount of mineral resources that are mined on its moons. On the planet's surface, there is a lot of wilderness left, even quite close to the cities."

The ship was fairly large, larger than any Raven had ever been on, for that matter. Eeth showed her around the galley where they had droids preparing meals for them, and then they wandered through the common room area where Sato and Granzien were seated on a comfortable-looking couch discussing plants. Finally, they went to the opposite end of the ship where the cockpit was located and looked around the crafts hangar. They found a large cargo area that could be used for their workouts. It wasn't until Eeth pulled off his cloak to climb onto a platform that they might use for aerials practice that Raven noticed he had that blasted paddle tucked into the back of his belt. "Masterrr, for real? Did you absolutely have to bring that horrid thing? We're on a mission! What if somebody sees it? How embarrassing!"

"Of course I brought it," Eeth replied matter-of-factly. "People will be no more or less likely to notice than they would be at the Temple."

"Yes, and it's equally horrifying there. Can't you just leave it in your pack or something?"

"During the ceremonies, I will," Eeth replied, unperturbed. "At other times, I will not. Since I am not gifted with foresight, I have no way of knowing if and when I might be required to use it. If I am not, that will be all for the better."

He jumped down from the platform and pulled the cloak back on.

"Unpack your things and fetch your mission briefing," he told Raven. "I will meet you in the lounge in twenty minutes to discuss our strategy. We will need to identify the persons we ought to speak to and memorise their names and backgrounds."

Far from placated, but entirely unwilling to complain further, Raven did as instructed. She took her time about it, too. This bedroom was almost three times the size of her room at the Temple, and it was certainly more extravagant; it was nice to spend time in here. The corner of her mouth pulled into a slight smile as she imagined how Eeth would be handling all this luxury.

Twenty minutes later the padawan reluctantly left her bedroom to find Eeth. He was in the lounge, as he had said he would be. Granzien and Sato were there as well, occupying a group of armchairs in the far corner and discussing holograms of plants in low voices. Eeth was sitting at a large, oval table that looked like it could seat twenty people comfortably. She went to the far end and sat beside him. "Let the fun begin," she drawled. Raven could think of one hundred things she would rather be doing right now, but conceded that they ought to, at the very least, learn the names of those people they would be meeting.

"Padawan, this is a mission, not an amusement trip," Eeth said sternly. "And it is your mission as much as mine. I will not have you slacking off, trailing behind me and relying on me to know and do everything."

"Force forbid," Raven replied drily. The idea of slacking off while Eeth was around was almost amusing. Almost.

"Quite so," said Eeth. And thus, they spent the next few hours discussing the details of every high-ranking Fenestrian politician and member of the political opposition, memorising their names. Fortunately, Fenestrians' skin color varied widely which made things a little easier.

Lunch was served by droids and was well above average standards for spaceship travel. Of course, they had only left Coruscant this morning which meant that their ship was stocked up on fresh food, as opposed to the usual bland spaceship variety.

"It would be good if you too could memorise the names and details of the most important persons who are likely to talk to you during the crowning ceremony," Eeth told Granzien and Sato during lunch. "Anything that will help the Jedi's reputation will be a bonus. I will prepare a file and send it to you this afternoon."

"Wait a minute," Sato interrupted. "That's your job, not ours. We're here for the plants, not the politics." Sato thought she'd had her fair share of ceremonial-type missions, and now that she was sixteen, her skills should be put to better uses.

Eeth's eyes narrowed. "You have been sent to Fenesteer as part of this mission team with specific instructions to attend the crowning ceremony," he said brusquely. "I am the leader of this mission team, and when I tell you what you need to do, you will do it. At sixteen years of age, you should be familiar with the concept of obedience."

"He's right, you know," Granzien remarked mildly, leaning back in his chair. "We'll do it, of course. We might primarily be there for the plants, but if the crowning ceremony is important to the Jedi Order and if we have to attend it, then we'll do our best to represent the Order. Send us the file, and we'll study it. Both of us."

"Ridiculous," muttered Sato, leaning back in her chair and trying to appear as casual as Granzien did.

Raven looked from Eeth to Granzien, and then to Sato and back again. It was like watching a tennis match. Well, rubbing Eeth up the wrong way was not a good way to start, and so Raven decided to stay out of this one.

"No, it is not," Eeth snapped. "When two senior Jedi tell you what you will do, you would do well to accept it. In a respectful manner. Is that understood?"

"It is," Sato replied frostily. She wasn't happy about this latest development, but neither was there much she could do about it.

Raven was just glad it wasn't her being chewed out for a change. She didn't say anything, although she did think the teenager brave for taking on Eeth, however mildly.

Eeth pointed a glare at Sato but let the matter rest. Granzien had said he would see to it that they'd study the mission file and Eeth knew that the man would keep his promise. So he would leave matters to him.

Sato didn't say much else after that, although Raven made up for it by chatting animatedly. Sato wasn't a particularly quiet personality, but neither was she as animated, or as endowed with bottomless energy, as Raven seemed to.

When lunch was over, all of them went to fetch their workout gear. "You might have stood up for me," Sato commented as she followed Granzien down to the far side of the corridor, after Raven and Eeth had already disappeared into their rooms. Her tone was not angry, but neither did she sound pleased with him.

"I concede that he's way too bossy and can be mightily annoying," Granzien said, "but he's right. We'll have to attend the crowning ceremony, everybody will recognise us as Jedi representatives, and they might talk to us. If we know the people who're addressing us and their interests, it might help. Especially in a politically volatile situation. I like diplomacy just as little as you do, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Plus, it's Eeth's job to give us these instructions. It's not like he went out of his way to make life difficult for you."

"I wouldn't put it past him," Sato replied, but there was no bite to her tone. She was still not happy with Granzien for not sticking up for her, but there was no point in arguing that.

Their group workout was everything Raven had hoped for and more. Sato was agile and powerful, and sparring with Granzien was outright fun! He had rolled her around the floor a few times and looked as if he were enjoying himself as much as she was. Watching Eeth with Granzien was something else. Eeth was clearly better; there weren't many in the Temple who could best him in a lightsaber duel. Granzien, however, had something unique, connected, almost earthy, to his style that Raven found fascinating.

When Eeth called an end to their fight, Raven was disappointed. That had been fun and she wasn't keen on going back to work … a trend that carried on into the next day.

It was lunchtime on their final day of travel. Sato was constructing pieces to a holographic plant puzzle on the common room floor, Granzien was sifting through data chips on the couch and Eeth sat opposite her at the table reading something. Raven glanced over her datapad to look at his, but it was too far away to focus on the words. "What are you reading?" she asked, clearly bored.

"Food production on Fenesteer," Eeth said a little absent-mindedly. "Finish your maths."

Raven huffed, but it took no more than a look over his data pad to have her complying.

Twenty minutes later she had finished with the maths section of her work. She didn't say anything, though, because each time she announced a section was done with, Eeth told her to start on the next one. Instead, Raven pulled her datapad into her lap so Eeth wouldn't be able to see her screen, and started playing a game.

This went on for about five minutes until Eeth asked: "Haven't you finished your maths yet?"

It briefly crossed Raven's mind to lie, but that had yet to pay off. "If I say yes, will you make me do any more work?"

"You know you still have your Basic assignment to finish," said Eeth sternly.

"I don't care. I'm tired of working all the time." Raven closed down the game and slapped the pad onto the table; she was irritated.

"Welcome to life as a Jedi," Granzien remarked without looking up from his data chips. He was not actually as laissez-faire as he often seemed to students. He was just a lot nicer than Eeth about getting people to do what they were supposed to do.

Raven turned a 'who asked you' kind of look on Granzien, and then she looked back to Eeth as he spoke.

"Indeed," Eeth said coolly, giving Raven a look that clearly said she had better start working on her Basic assignment, fast.

The look was noted, but Raven was far from placated. "I've been doing nothing but class work since we left Coruscant. I'm bored with it. I'll do it later, it's not like it's going to disappear if I take a break." Not that Raven would complain if it did; she was sick and tired of this and it showed.

Eeth rose wordlessly, stepped around the table, pulled her up by the ear and gave her a scorching swat with the paddle that he had pulled out of his belt an instant ago.

"You will do it now," he snapped. "This is not open for negotiation."

Granzien was studiously NOT LOOKING.

Conversely, Sato's head shot up at the sound. Having been entirely focussed on completing the puzzle she was piecing together, she had not been following their conversation. She let out a low whistle of appreciation; that had sounded like a gunshot. Ouch. Then, she returned her attention to the puzzle. Apparently Eeth had not got his reputation for nothing.

Raven knew that, yet she had still pushed him. Why? Because she was BORED and frustrated and everyone was being entirely unsympathetic about it! She couldn't have cared less who saw; her only priority right now was trying to rub out the sting while angling her butt so that Eeth would have to physically turn her in order to land any more. "Nothing is ever up for negotiation," Raven hissed through gritted teeth. That had fucking hurt and it was taking her a few seconds to pull herself together.

"True," Eeth said icily. "Particularly during missions. Are you going to obey or do you want me to take this further? I give you five seconds to make that choice."

"No! I'll obey." Because what else could she possibly do? Sulking, Raven quickly sat before she could do herself another disservice and quickly got back to work.

The next half hour Raven spent trying to concentrate while wriggling around on her chair. Sure, Eeth had only given her a single swat, but he had made it count. Despite this, Raven was still excited. There was only a few hours to go before they would be exiting hyperspace. Her very first mission was about to begin!


	2. Chapter 2

It was evening by the time they arrived; fortunately for them, that was true for Coruscant as well as for their destination on Fenesteer. Temple administration tried to time departures and travel times accordingly if at all possible. They landed at a spaceport on a floating platform above the ocean, with a view to the coastline of the continent on which Fenesteer's capital city of Iola was located. Iola was in the subtropical region of the planet, surrounded by forests. As Eeth led the team off the spaceship, a big, gilded speeder was already waiting for them.

Once they were all in, the speeder took off at a rather sedate pace, giving the passengers plenty of time to take in what little of the scenery was still visible in the evening light. Raven was glued to the side window, whereas Sato was far harder to impress; she had been on more missions than she could count, and this was just another planet to her.

The speeder took them across densely wooded country; the air was heavy with the smell of tropical flowers. Granzien quietly pointed out some of them to Sato as they made their way towards the city. The woods gradually thinned. Finally, they flew across a silver fence and over a parklike area dotted with low, long buildings that had blue walls and silver roofs. A long, wide and entirely straight alley divided the park into two, and the speeder swerved around to follow it. Up ahead at its end, maybe a kilometre away, they could see the Royal Palace, brightly illuminated: a huge towering building with the same blue walls and silver rooftops as the houses that surrounded it. The speeder made its way towards it for a few hundred meters. Then the pilot took a turn to the left, flew over an outcrop of trees and landed in front of a flat, large guest house. Two protocol droids were standing at attention in front of the silver doors. As the speeder landed, they flung them open to reveal a broad corridor hung with colorful tapestries, leading towards their private suite.

"If you thought the spaceship was luxurious, wait until you see our accommodation," Eeth murmured to his impressed padawan, looking slightly disdainfully.

True to his words, the suite assigned to the four Jedi was spacious and extremely comfortable, holding four bedrooms with huge beds, two bathrooms with even huger bathtubs, a dining room and a lounge sporting several soft, silken divans. Additionally, the guest house was equipped with a shared indoor and outdoor pool, something the protocol droids called a "steam room", a gym and a speeder garage with a number of speeders that were at their disposal.

"Like I said. Luxury," Eeth said a little wearily when the protocol droids had left them. He took off his cloak and sat down on the edge of one of the divans.

"True," said Granzien, flopping backwards onto another divan and putting his boots up on what was probably meant to be a footrest. Eeth looked as if he had bitten into a lemon.

Raven had thrown her pack into the room between Eeth and Sato; Granzien was at the far end. Then, not bothering to wait for Sato to exit her chosen bedroom, she raced down the hall to where she sensed Eeth. The look on his face amused her; all this luxury was probably getting to him. Full of pent-up energy that could only come with forty hours stuck in a spaceship, Raven took a run up, launched herself high into the air and landed on a divan of her own. "This," bounce, "is," bounce, "springy," she said, bouncing around on her butt a few extra times for good measure before looking over at the two Jedi masters seated – or lying – beside and opposite her.

"Do not destroy the furniture," Eeth admonished her, his eyes straying towards Granzien's boots that were resting on the silken cover of the divan's footrest. He was interrupted by a droid that rolled up to him and thrust a dinner menu under his nose with a chirp.

At that moment Sato exited her bedroom to join them. "I suppose I could get used to this," she commented with a small smile, sitting down on the divan that Raven had just bounced off and left free.

"I know, right. How cool is this place!" The question had been rhetorical, so Raven continued. "It has pools, too. Can we go?" Raven turned from where she was exploring the contents of some desk drawers to look at Eeth. She hoped he wouldn't want to eat, not now, not when there was so much in their suite that just had to be tried out. Their very own gigantic bathtubs, indoor and outdoor pools, steam rooms, entertainment consoles that appeared, at first glance, to have games on them! Oh, and holo networks. Raven was practically vibrating.

"Padawan, we have a very long day tomorrow," said Eeth. "We should just have dinner and turn in."

"Do you honestly believe you can send this girl to bed, in the state she's in?" Granzien inquired.

Eeth looked Raven up and down and had to concede that Granzien was probably right.

"Alright," he said. "We will order dinner now and then go to the pool for half an hour until it arrives. After dinner, it is unpacking, meditation and bed for you, padawan."

"YES!" Raven wooted, air punching the air. She did not hear the last part of Eeth's instructions, as she was far too busy hopping around in circles.

"It's just a pool. We have dozens of them at the Temple," commented Sato.

"Yes, but we don't have _these_ pools, which are on Fenesteer, at the Temple," replied Raven, her exuberance remaining uninhibited.

Sato rolled her eyes but said nothing more. The truth was that she had been a bit the same herself when she was younger, and this was Raven's first mission. Besides, the girl's energy was contagious; it was hard not to smile along with her.

Without waiting for instructions, Raven ran for her bedroom to find her bathing suit. Unlike Sato, who had started to organise her clothing, Raven upended her pack onto her bed and found what she was looking for. Less than two minutes later she emerged, finding that she was alone in the common room; apparently, everyone else was still changing. Eeth was next to emerge. "Slowpoke," she teased.

Eeth gave her a withering look but did not reply. A moment later, Granzien and Sato joined them. They found that the indoor pool was fairly small and contained fragrant water, probably meant for soaking; the outdoor pool was large enough for an actual swim. A couple of Ishi Tib were lying in deck chairs next to it, in the shade of a large tree.

"Diplomats," Eeth murmured to Raven. "Here for the crowning ceremony as well. You go ahead and swim. I will have to talk to them briefly, anything else would be impolite."

Raven didn't need telling twice, although before taking off for some fun in the pool, she turned to Granzien and Sato. "Want to come with?" Of course Raven would go without them, and Granzien probably had to talk to the diplomats with Eeth, but she was following her master's example here; it was polite to ask, right? Right!

Sato shrugged, threw her towel onto a wooden deckchair and looked to Granzien. Yes, she wanted to swim, but she also knew that duty came first. What she wasn't sure of, was what her duty was here.

"Go ahead," said Granzien. "We'll be with you in a moment, I suppose." He was not overly fond of talking to diplomats, and he would have much preferred to leave this part of their mission to Eeth, but it would have looked strange if he had ignored the two Ishi Tib. Thus, he followed Eeth to the deckchairs where they introduced themselves and had a few minutes of small talk. The Ishi Tib, fortunately, were more interested in their seaweed cocktails than in exchanging extended pleasantries. After five minutes, the masters came to join the two padawans - Eeth with a graceful jump, Granzien with an undignified, but all the more enormous splash.

Raven and Sato were busy racing each other when the two masters joined them.

Now that they were all in the pool, Raven swam over to Eeth. He was standing, as was Granzien, but Raven was treading water. She grabbed Eeth's forearm to keep herself afloat without doing any work. "Race? I almost beat Sato last time."

"Dream on, kid," Sato guffawed as she backstroked lazy circles around the group.

"Alright," said Eeth. "I give you a head start of half the pool's length." This seemed about fair to him. If she wanted a race, he was going to give her a proper race!

By this point in their relationship, Raven expected no less from Eeth. She took that head start, and when Granzien yelled for them to "GO", the padawan took off like a shot. Her arms and legs were a lot shorter and had less muscle, but still, Raven was tenacious and swam like she were being pursued by a sea monster. Well, maybe sea monster was being a little too harsh. She didn't have time to contemplate that thought, though, as her hand smacked the end of the pool and she turned, panting, to see if she'd beaten him.

She had indeed. Eeth had been fair; the head start he had offered her had given her a good chance of winning, and that was why his hand reached the end of the pool half a second after hers.

"Well done," he said. "For how many runs can you keep up that speed?"

Eeth's praise drew a smile from the padawan. The pool was about twenty-five meters long, which wasn't exactly far to swim, and Eeth was giving her half that length as a head start. Hmm. "I dunno," she answered honestly. "But I bet I can beat you again." Eeth had superior stamina, but Raven was tenacious – at least when it came to her physical training – and she would usually push herself until Eeth intervened … or she dropped. The latter had yet to happen; Eeth was pretty good at picking the point that was just short of this.

It took another few lengths before Eeth started to beat her. Raven wasn't deterred, though. She kept it up, never losing hope that she might just get him on the next attempt.

Sato was swimming lazy lengths by the pool's far edge, away from all the splashing and excited squeals. She had to hand it to Eeth: if this didn't wear the kid out, nothing would.

Which was a correct assessment. Raven might be tenacious but her stamina was no match for Eeth's. After a few more rounds, it was clear that there was no way that Raven was going to be able to win another race. The half hour that Eeth had granted was up at that point anyway, and Eeth assumed that dinner would be served soon.

"Let us go inside and eat," he said, more to Raven than to Granzien and Sato because he could not really order those two to eat. But Granzien readily agreed to go inside and get changed.

Eeth gracefully pulled himself out of the pool, stood and smoothed back his hair. Sato jumped from the pool and stood by the edge, flicking water from her equally long, black hair while she waited for the others. Granzien was third; he hoisted himself up with a little less grace than Eeth but still fairly easily. He was a Jedi master, after all, and in good physical condition. When Raven swam up to him, gesturing for a hand up, he immediately reached down and pulled the younger padawan from the water. Not that there was much to Raven. Being a native of Chine, and only eleven to boot, she didn't weigh much more than thirty kilos soaking wet. Raven's exuberance was somewhat diminished after having swum sprints for the last half an hour, though, and Granzien only received a chuckle in response to her 'ride' out of the pool. He pointedly ignored Eeth's carefully neutral look, clapped Raven on the back and sent her inside to change.

By dinnertime, Raven was practically falling asleep in her food. The combination of her first mission and all the excitement that had followed it since landing on Fenesteer had finally caught up to her. Still, Raven was doing her best to hide this; she was a member of this team and none of them looked tired.

Despite her fatigue, Eeth forced Raven to meditate, but only briefly. Then he sent her off to bed. For once, there was no protest. They would have to get up early; they had an appointment with the future king first thing in the morning.

When Raven reached her bedroom, she was greeted to the sight of her pack, upended on her bed. Oh yeah, she had forgotten about doing that. Stuffing everything back into the bag, she made to toss it into her walk-in robes, only to find that most of the cupboard and hanging space was already taken up with crested Fenestrian garments. Yep, there was everything in here from sleepwear to bathing suits! They were high quality materials, too; certainly a far cry from the dull cottons and basics she was accustomed to at the Temple.

Tired as she was, Raven finished unpacking, brushed her teeth and crawled into an extremely large bed. This was the life!

* * *

The following morning Raven woke when Eeth opened her door. It was already quite light in her bedroom. She stood, not caring that the silk garment she had slept in was several sizes too large. "Comingggg," she said through a yawn.

Eeth nodded and left her to it.

Twenty minutes later, a far more presentable-looking Jedi padawan entered their common room area. She could smell breakfast, yet was unsure if it had been delivered, cooked by one of the others, or if the smell was coming from outside. "Master," she greeted Eeth with a slight bow. She was a little sore from her impromptu swimming marathon last night, not that she was planning to say as much.

"Padawan," said Eeth. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, it was like sleeping in a giant's bed."

"Granzien and Sato have left for an early-morning excursion," Eeth said, pointing to a datapad with a note that was lying on the table. "Apparently, some of the Force-sensitive plants in this region are most active at dawn."

"Ugh, poor Sato" Raven replied without thought. She was still pretty sleepy but was starting to come to life.

It was at that moment that several short droids wheeled past them into their dining area. They each had a tray full of food attached to their front. Whatever it was, it smelled good. Raven jumped to her feet and followed the last one in, excited to find out what they had. "Ooo, cucumber pieces and yogurt." Or, at least it looked like yogurt. Raven made to dip her finger in to taste but sensed that Eeth had followed he, and decided against it. "Looks good. Should we save some for Granzien and Sato?" That was a joke; Raven didn't eat much at all, and there was more than enough for all four of them.

"They did not know when they would be back," Eeth said, watching the droids set the table for them with a slightly impatient look. He preferred to look after himself, instead of having others wait on him. "If there is not enough left for them, they can always order more."

Raven shrugged. "What things do we have to do today?" she asked. It was probably too much to hope that they could spend their entire time on Fenesteer swimming in pools and having fun.

"Mainly meetings," said Eeth. "First of all, we will go to the palace and meet the future king. Wearing formal Jedi attire. The ceremonial robes, fortunately, are reserved for the crowning ceremony."

"I don't know if formal Jedi attire would be that much better," Raven commented. Truth was, Raven had yet to wear formal Jedi attire; as a creche youngling, their uniforms had been practical, nothing more. Of course, she had seen Eeth dressed in his formal getup dozens of times. It was very official-looking, at least it was when Eeth wore it.

Eeth had to smile a little at that statement. He did not comment, though. Raven would see for herself how cumbersome Fenestrian ceremonial robes were. Getting dressed in them required the help of protocol droids. If Raven thought that formal Jedi attire was bothersome, she had another thing coming.

The food was good, very good, and so Raven ate more than she usually would. When they were done eating, Granzien and Sato arrived.

"Good, you left some for us," said Sato, sitting down opposite Eeth. She was starving. A morning of looking at plants will do that to a person.

"Try the blue stuff, it's spicy," Raven said, passing on Eeth's suggestion. Eeth was pretty good at knowing what she would and would not like.

Sato shrugged, and then she piled a couple of spoonfuls of that onto her plate, as well as a spoonful of just about everything else and two pieces of flatbread.

Granzien's appetite was more moderate but he, too, enjoyed the food.

"Was your excursion successful?" Eeth asked politely.

Granzien's eyes lit up. "Yeah! It's hard to find plants anywhere in the galaxy that react as strongly to the Force as these do, especially at dawn, when they wake up. Sato was able to make them move. We need to practice that further." Which probably meant that they would have to get up at the crack of dawn every single day while they were on the planet. Granzien didn't care, as long as he got to work with these plants!

"Further practice? Does that mean that you two have to get up at the ass crack of dawn each day?" Raven chuckled. "Sucks to be you."

"Padawan," Eeth said reprovingly, shooting her a scathing look.

Raven's comment hadn't bothered Sato. "I'd take plants over politics any day," she replied casually. Sure, it wasn't going to be great having to get up that early each day, but like Granzien, she enjoyed working with these plants. Besides, they weren't likely to get another opportunity like this any time soon.

Given that both Eeth and Raven had finished their food, Raven stood, wincing very slightly as she pushed in her chair. "I guess I'll go change, then?" It was half question, half statement, so she paused before taking off.

Eeth noticed her wince and her stiff stance.

"Are you sore?" he inquired.

Raven gave him a surprised look. "A bit."

"Do you think it will bother you for the rest of the day?" Eeth asked. "I can offer some healing if that is the case."

Raven shrugged. "Maybe you could teach me how to do it myself, and then I wouldn't have to bother you with it." She could think of a number of uses for such a skill, after all.

"I will," said Eeth. "But dealing with pain is complex and we hardly have time for that right now. Even when I teach you, I will want you to bother me and ask for permission before you apply it."

"Why?" It was a legitimate question. Again, Raven could think of one reason, but she wasn't sure if that was all there was to this.

"Because you might be tempted to use it on well-deserved punishments," Eeth said matter-of-factly. "And if I find you doing that, I will make sure your bottom is so sore that even the use of pain-relief techniques will not be much help."

Sato smirked, covering it with a fake cough.

Raven, however, just looked at Eeth with wide eyes; an ass so sore that not even the Force could help her was not something she wanted to experience. Did he really mean that?

"Yes, I mean it," said Eeth, his face impassive. "Come. I will provide some healing in my room. Then we need to get dressed. As impeccably as we possibly can. See to it that your boots are clean."

The look on Raven's face was priceless, and again Sato smirked, only this time she made more of an effort to hide it.

Raven, for her part, went to Eeth's room, oblivious of the entertainment she was providing. She sat on a divan that was against the wall in his expansive bedroom and waited.

Eeth knelt in front of Raven and slid his hands along the length of her pants and tunic sleeves, scanning her through the Force. As he had suspected, she had a bad case of sore muscles. He asked her to lie down on her stomach and massaged her, providing what healing energy he could while he did so.

"Well, that is as much as I am capable of," he finally said. "Now make yourself presentable. We need to leave in twenty minutes."

"Thanks," said Raven, standing and giving her arms a few test circles. The pain was mild now, which was good as today was going to be stressful enough for the padawan without having to worry about aches and pains. She went to her bedroom, dressed in formal robes, cleaned her boots, did her hair and, after a quick once-over, left to find Eeth. "Ready," she called, entering his bedroom to find him seated on his bed, pulling on his boots.

Eeth checked her critically and could not find anything wrong with her attire, try as he might. Thus, he nodded his approval. They left his bedroom to find a protocol droid waiting for them in the lounge. The droid coughed politely and asked them to accompany him to a waiting speeder which would take them to the future king's residence.

Raven drew a deep breath, exhaled and followed Eeth and the droid. This was it, she was on her very first mission and it was about to start! Eeth would argue that it had started the moment they left the Temple, but for Raven, it was right now.

It took about seven minutes to reach the future King's personal landing platform. When the ramp lowered, six rather ferocious-looking humanoid guards strode out to meet them. Raven remained behind Eeth, a little to his left, and observed. They were very well dressed, as were most of the officials they had met so far. Clearly their purpose here was to offer more than an escort, thought Raven upon noticing that they each carried battle-class blasters and wore full body armour.

Eeth bowed formally to the guards and said calmly: "Jedi Master Eeth Koth and Jedi Padawan Raven, to meet His Excellency Falp af Fustaun."

The guards bowed in reply to his greeting and invited the two Jedi to follow them, leading them into the inside of the large building that was tastefully decorated, but nearly austere in comparison to the lavish guest quarters. This was probably meant to distinguish it from the palace which was about a dozen times larger than this building. Still, the way towards the reception room took plenty long enough, leading through a maze of corridors, staircases and, at one point, a courtyard with a small garden. Nobility on this planet built to impress.

Raven glanced around in awe. The interior decorating was lavish, but not to the point where it looked out of place in this smaller palace. It was nice, and she liked it! She followed along quietly through several different linked chambers, each as impressive as the last, until the guards finally came to a stop in a large hallway facing two gigantic doors. "Now that's what I call a door," Raven whispered to Eeth as she gazed up at the ornately carved archway.

"Yes," Eeth said in a low voice. "And please keep any comments you might want to make to yourself from now on. In the presence of the future king, it will be advisable if you only speak when he asks you a question."

Raven inclined her head and followed quietly as the guards opened the doors and waved them inside. The future king was seated at the head of a very large table. Glasses and pitchers of water, as well as various bowls of fruit, sat around it. He was reading, but looked up as the two Jedi approached. Raven followed Eeth's lead, offering the king a formal bow, but otherwise she remained silent.

The future king rose and offered them a complicated kind of curtsey in return. It looked even more complicated than it was due to the fact that the Fenestrians had very long arms and legs, in proportion to their moderate height and slight figure.

"Master Koth," Falp af Fustaun said in a surprisingly deep voice. "It is good to see you again. I am sorry for the formal circumstances of our meeting, but at these times, I have to keep up appearances." His eyes flicked towards a corner of the room where Eeth suspected a surveillance camera.

"I see you have brought a new padawan learner?" Falp asked, turning towards Raven and smiling.

Eeth nudged Raven to introduce herself.

Thanks to Eeth's annoying attention to every detail, Raven had practiced appropriate greetings ad nauseam during their trip from Coruscant. "I'm Padawan Raven Trebeck. Good to meet you, your Excellency."

They were invited to sit; Eeth beckoned Raven to an empty chair before taking a seat himself.

The king immediately asked a question about the status of the debate on the new weapons laws, and Eeth started explaining the activities and motivations of the Senate committee. He was not surprised at the future king's interest in the matter. Smuggling and piracy were problems in this sector, and Fenesteer would benefit from stricter laws. Eeth was interested to learn, from a comment Falp made in passing, that parts of the old aristocracy were rather half-hearted about supporting the new laws, which made it appear likely that they were in some way connected to weapon producers or dealers. Eeth made a mental note to make inquiries into that matter.

The conversation lasted about half an hour until Falp finally, and with obvious regret, told them he was expecting his next visitor shortly.

"I hope to keep in contact with you, Master Koth," he said politely. "We will appoint a new Senator right after Our crowning. She will hopefully be of help to your commendable endeavours."

"I am pleased to hear that," Eeth replied calmly. "Thank you for your attention, your Excellency."

He glanced at Raven, inviting her to say a polite goodbye.

Although the entire conversation was boring as bat shit to Raven, she paid close attention. For one thing, it was important that she know what was going on; for another thing, Eeth had a tendency to spring pop quizzes! Both were good motivators. Raven offered the future king a bow and followed Eeth out. When they had a moment free from their guards, she took the opportunity to ask about the meeting.

"Do you think the lack of support for stricter laws by the old aristocracy might mean they could be profiting from the smuggling?" Raven was curious to know if Eeth had the same ideas, and equally curious to know how they would go about finding out if he did.

"That is a very pertinent observation," replied Eeth. "I am pleased that you have paid such close attention and thought about what you heard. I will send a message to the Temple and ask them to undertake further inquiries. We will also, during our stay here, try to find out what we can. Senator Izz Whee, whom we met at the pool last night, might be able to help us if I ask him confidentially. He is trustworthy and rather close to the Jedi. For now, we have a meeting with the future Prime Minister. I know him quite well; he used to work with the Republican Senate. The conversation will be less formal, and we might be able to find out more. I would be interested to know whom the king intends to appoint as Senator. He must have had his reasons not to tell us her name, but maybe it was a rather formalistic issue."

Raven nodded. "I liked Senator Izz Whee, he looked trustworthy," she commented, but before Eeth could reply, they were met by two guards who escorted them to their next meeting.

Eesh, the corridors seemed to go on forever! Finally, they came to the office that belonged to the future Prime Minister. Their guards tapped something into a security panel, and then they stood back as the door opened.

This time, impressive doors notwithstanding, they were shown into a rather small and untidy office where an elderly, small and wiry man welcomed them with a big smile.

"Master Eeth, do come in!" he said warmly, opening his arms as if wanting to hug them. "This is your new padawan, I assume?" He turned his friendly face towards Raven. "I'm Minister Anat af Manauam."

"Hello, Minister Anat af Manauam. It's nice to meet you," Raven replied, bowing and meeting him with a genuine smile; this man was quite charismatic, if first impressions were anything to go by.

The wiry man returned her smile, and then his attention turned back to Eeth. It had been quite some time since he had seen Eeth Koth. He liked the man. They had worked together in the past, after all, and that history showed in his relaxed approach. "Please, sit." Anat gestured to the chairs opposite his desk before returning to his own.

The discussion was much more relaxed than the previous one had been although Eeth noticed that the Prime Minister was reluctant to give away too much. Still, it was obvious that the man was trying to give them a hint to make further investigations into the role of the aristocracy in arms trade, even if he did not want to disclose everything he seemed to know.

Eeth was rather thoughtful when they left the office more than an hour later, pondering what he had heard and thinking of ways to deal with it.

Raven did not ask any questions, nor did she bother Eeth with her frustrations over Anat's reluctance to give them information, on the trip back to their guest quarters. When they arrived, they got off and their speeder took off, leaving them in the garage. "Maybe we can plant bugs or something to listen in on conversations?" Raven broke her silence to suggest. She was still thinking about how to get information out of Anat, among others.

"That," said Eeth, "would be entirely unethical, especially since we have no authorisation whatsoever to do such a thing. Besides, I am too well-known around here. If I was caught out planting bugs somewhere, can you imagine how the aristocracy would exploit this in order to damage Fenesteer's new system and their relationship with the Republic? We will probably have to leave the undercover work to others. We will be too busy taking part in the celebrations most of the time. Of course, we will have plenty of opportunity to talk to the aristocrats. If we are very lucky, we might overhear some of their private talks, but they will be sure to be cautious. We will find out what we can, enlisting help wherever we can and making use of the contacts I have here. The rest, we will leave to the Council. They can easily send some undercover operatives here."

Raven knew it was unethical, but in this case thought it might be worth it. Apparently, it was not. She sighed. Suggesting herself as a possible undercover operative was simply arrogant, or was it? For now, Raven said nothing and simply followed Eeth into their common room area.

Granzien and Sato were nowhere to be seen. There was a note, however, stating that they had gone exploring and were contactable by comlink. Raven sat on one of their comfortable divans, her boots hanging over the end and stretching out long. She could get used to this sort of luxury.

"Do not get too comfortable," Eeth said drily, sitting on a chair. "We will be picked up in twenty-six minutes for a lunch reception. All the diplomats and Fenestrian dignitaries will be there."

"Gee, don't work too hard selling me on it or anything," Raven replied sarcastically, craning her head backwards over the divan. She looked at him, smiling a little at his upside down figure. Twenty-six minutes was too short a time to begin anything, but long enough to become boring. Flipping her boots over her head, Raven rolled off the divan. She was still thinking about their conversation with Minister Anat af Manauam. Of course, Raven wanted to help in their mission and had not gotten to the stage where she had realised that her help might actually turn out to be a hindrance. "You know, about planting bugs and all that," she started, leaning a hip into their dining table. "Maybe I could be a human bug? I don't think anyone would notice me. It could help us find out more?" Raven was aware that it was probably arrogant, but hell, you had to be in it to win it. Right? Right!

"Padawan, if you honestly think I would let you stray from my side on your very first mission, you must be deluded," Eeth said drily. "Besides, a lot of people will see you in my company, starting during today's lunch reception. And from that point onwards, you will be anything but inconspicuous - even if you weren't wearing a Jedi uniform, that is. Thus, the answer is no."

Raven huffed, summoned a sweet from the bowl in the middle of their dining table and picked open the wrapper. "Will the answer always be no when it comes to letting me do anything meaningful? Are you planning on watching me every second of the mission? I'm not a baby, you know," she grumbled. "I bet Granzien isn't keeping Sato by his side all the time."

Eeth glared at her. "All you just said is ridiculous," he snapped. "And you will tell me why that is, preferably without spoiling your appetite just before a huge lunch reception."

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that _HE_ was the one who was ridiculous, but it didn't take a genius to know where that would land her. Raven shoved the half-unwrapped sweet into her pocket and then folded her arms. "It might not be the best idea," she settled on, avoiding his gaze.

"Why not?" Eeth demanded to know. He rose from his chair and folded his arms across his chest in a rather ominous way.

The expression and posture did not go unnoticed, and Raven started to squirm. She turned her back to the table, just in case. "Because, it's my first mission, and you already said no." That was as safe an answer as Raven could come up with, short of admitting that she might have been a little unreasonable in her expectations, and possibly taking that out on him. A bit.

"I want to to hear that you understand why I said no," Eeth said sternly. "In contrast to what you suggested, I do not have any particular inclination to treat you like a baby and I hope you know it. Look at me when I am talking to you."

They had only a quarter of an hour left until they were picked up but that was more than enough time to resort to more forceful means in case Raven continued to be obstinate. And the look on Eeth's face said as much.

Reluctantly, Raven looked up from where she had been fiddling with her tunic hem, and met his gaze. "Well, sometimes it feels that way. I want to do things to help, and you won't let me, is all." By now the padawan was looking for an escape out of this conversation.

Eeth grabbed Raven by the braid, turned her around and delivered a scorching swat to the seat of her pants.

Raven saw that coming, but it was too late to attempt further deflection tactics. Thus, there wasn't much she could do other than hope that it wasn't going to hurt too much. Yeah, as if it had ever worked out that way. "Oww!" Yep, that had fucking hurt.

"I was not asking you how you feel," Eeth snapped. "And I think you know it perfectly well. My question was why I said no. Either answer it now or be ready to go over my knee."

Oh, Force no! Raven twisted so that her ass was side on, not that this tactic had ever worked before, and started talking. "You said no because it's my first mission and you don't want me to stray from your side and someone might notice and you said it would be unethical!" she blurted in one, long run-on sentence.

"Correct," Eeth said grimly. "It would also be dangerous and pose high diplomatic risks. And since it is entirely outside our mission mandate, I am not prepared to bear that risk. The future king and Prime Minister have been wary to tell us all they know for good reason. If the aristocrats were alerted to the fact that somebody is prying into their secrets right now, that would cause a lot of unrest and potentially harm the king's standing before he is even crowned. Besides, doing any undercover work in our role as diplomats will simply not be feasible. We would need time and anonymity in order to gain access to their circles and we have neither. We will have to content ourselves with alerting the Temple and doing what little we can while attending official functions."

He glanced at his chronometer. "Brush your hair," he said. "We will be picked up in a moment."

"Yes, master," Raven replied, while backing her way along the edge of their dining table. She ran for her bedroom to do as he'd said, feeling a bit sorry for herself. It was a contest over which to rub first: the base of her braid, or her ass, although the latter won out. When Raven emerged five minutes later, wearing a slight pout, she found Eeth waiting for her by their front door. She was still unhappy with him for swatting her, but had to concede that it hadn't been the worst ever. Still! Raven leant into the doorframe, remaining silent.

"Stop sulking," Eeth said matter-of-factly, causing Raven to straighten up as he opened the door. "Ah. Senator Izz Whee. Consul Ha'ish Inwheen." The two Ishi Tib had just been passing by their doorway, presumably on their way to be picked up for the same reception that Eeth and Raven were headed for. And indeed, this time, it was a big shuttle that was waiting for them in front of the building. Besides the two Ishi Tib diplomats, eight other beings from various planets and of various species were housed in their building. As soon as all twelve passengers had boarded the shuttle, it took off and brought them right to the palace where an enormous buffet-style lunch was waiting for them in a gigantic hall that could easily hold a thousand people. At one end, it opened up towards a balcony which overlooked a park.

Raven walked by Eeth, taking it all in; there wasn't a lot she could otherwise do here. She nodded politely to those who greeted them in passing as they made their way to their table. The place really was huge, and the low rumble of so many people talking among each other sounded like a speeder with a busted idle, at least it did to Raven.

They had been placed at a table with a number of rather high-ranking persons, including the leading representatives of the neighboring systems, some members of the future government and some members of the old aristocracy. Eeth immediately engaged in a discussion with the previous king's son-in-law, his daughter, and the Prime Minister of the planet of Baltaire. This was a very good opportunity to make contacts and glean some information, after all. Their talk was interrupted by a welcoming speech by Falp af Fustaun's master of ceremonies, whereupon the buffet was opened. There were tables all along the three walls, laden with food.

"Serve yourself, padawan," Eeth said quietly as he politely helped an old aristocratic lady up from her chair.

Buffet was Raven's favoured dining choice because the opportunity to try a little of everything appealed.

Not only was the food amazing, but Raven was also introduced to meet a young boy named Kaal who was thirteen and served as a personal assistant to the superseded king's eldest son, Daimus. The two chatted for almost an hour about different things. All the while, Raven was doing her best to draw out any information that might help their with their earlier findings. She found out that Daimus had actually been next in line for the throne before the democracy was created, and that he had often boasted about how many things would change when he finally took his rightful place. Raven listened quietly as the boy continued to talk about what he affectionately referred to as the old days; he was certainly an interesting character, and one the padawan saw as a potential source of useful information. She excused herself from the conversation for a moment and leaned over, tugging on Eeth's sleeve.

"May I be excused?" she asked, hoping to be allowed some time to get some fresh air with her equally eager friend.

Eeth looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. What Raven was trying to do might be helpful. He just hoped that she would not inadvertently give them away. But then, a thirteen-year-old boy would not catch suspicion as easily as a grown-up. It was a risk worth taking. Besides, quite a number of guests had already left the hall towards the bright light and fresh air of the balcony and the park below it.

"Yes," he said. "You may ask your companion to show you around the park. Be back here in one hour." That would be just in time for their shuttle.

"Yes, master," Raven replied. She turned to Kaal, who was already standing, hand politely extended in an old-fashioned gesture.

Raven gave an awkward kind of smile, accepted his hand and followed him outside. The walk to the park wasn't long, only a few minutes, but it was pleasant. Much to the padawan's great relief, Kaal was more relaxed and less formal once he was out of the public eye, and she had a hard time trying not to laugh when he dropped a few colourful words making his opinions of certain senators known.

"So, how come I didn't see Prince Daimus in the dining hall with you today?" Raven enquired, trying her best to appear casual as the two lay back on sun chairs and did some cloud watching.

Kaal frowned slightly at her question. To a Fenestrian it was quite a personal thing to enquire about the business of another, especially that of a royal. Still, he liked the Jedi girl and he wanted to keep the conversation going. "You sure do ask a lot of questions. He's off-planet on private business today, but he assures me he will be back in time for the evening festivities." Wanting to change the subject, Kaal reached into his pocket, pulling out two wrapped sweets, and offered one to Raven.

"Thanks." The padawan didn't need the Force to sense that talking about Prince Daimus was making Kaal uneasy, and so she allowed him to set the topics for the rest of their meeting. It turned out that Kaal had a keen interest in the Force and how it worked. They talked about this for the majority of their time. Raven showed him how she moved things, but of course it was futile to teach a non-Force-sensitive being the mechanics of how this was done. "It's a feeling, like this." Raven raised her hand into the air, her eyes closed, and all the leaves around her began to rise.

Kaal was impressed. He had always been fascinated by Force users, and now was quite possibly the closest he had come to experiencing this 'Force' for himself. "You have to teach me more, I bet I can do it."

Raven was about to explain, AGAIN, that the Force was not something that could be taught to those who were not sensitive to feeling it, but she happened to glance at her watch instead. "Force!"

"Yes, the Force. Do you see it as a colour?" Daimus continued, mistaking her interjection for exuberance and giving over to the mystical power.

"No. I mean I have to go. I was meant to be back at the banquet by now. Thank you for the company; it was a nice escape from the politics. You know?"

"Of course." Kaal replied, looking flattered. "I'll come with you and explain if you like. It will not take more than a few minutes. I'm sure your master will understand."

Raven did not share his confidence, but nor was she willing to argue. They were heading back now, and that was the most important thing.

Eeth, in the meanwhile, was standing next to the exit of the hall, explaining to a group of ten diplomats, two protocol droids and a shuttle pilot that his padawan had been delayed and would be with them shortly. He could sense her approach; there was no point in calling her. That did most definitely not mean that he was pleased, however.

Raven could tell as much, both across their bond, and by the displeased expression on his face. When the two rushed up to where Eeth and the others stood, Raven made to explain that they had gotten delayed and why, but Kaal stepped in front of her, blocking her path. He puffed out his chest, looking about as regal and authoritative as a boy of his age and status could possibly manage. "Apologies," he started, offering a slightly less complicated Fenestrian bow to suit the Jedis' style. "I insisted on learning more about this Force that you both have. Raven was kind enough to help me understand, and we got caught up." It was the simple truth, after all.

Eeth inclined his head slightly. "Apology accepted," he said stiffly. Meaning the boy's apology. Raven had not, in fact, apologised yet, and he was not going to let her off quite as easily even if she did. They were going to have a talk about this. In private. And the look he shot Raven told her as much. For now, though, eleven persons and two droids were waiting for them. And thus, without further comment, Eeth ushered Raven towards the shuttle.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi, hi, and thanks to all those who are reading our story, who have reviewed and who have sent us IMs. We really appreciate the feedback and are thrilled to hear that our writing has inspired some of our readers to begin writing again. That's awesome. The next few chapters are going to see things shaken up a little for our Jedi. We hope you enjoy the ride.

We keep being asked for faster updates. We know we were pretty fast with stories like "Goyts." Currently, we find ourselves unable to keep up that speed, mainly because the original stories that we work with are really bad and some of the things we wrote at the beginning of our role-playing career fly in the face of our characters' later development. So we basically have to rewrite 80% of them and that takes time. Plus, both of us are fairly busy with real life at the moment. We still work on the stories nearly every day but progress is slow under the circumstances. We assume that after the Fenesteer mission, things will get easier because the original threads that we'll work on then are in much better shape already. Thank you for sticking with us!

* * *

The trip home passed in silence, save for occasional remarks exchanged between the diplomats on board the shuttle. Everybody seemed to be very full and fairly tired. Eeth was neither, but he was annoyed with his padawan and that did not tend to put him in a talkative mood.

Raven, for her part, was uncharacteristically quiet. She could tell that Eeth wasn't pleased with her; the only unknown was the extent of said displeasure.

Once they had arrived, the passengers made for their quarters. Eeth ushered Raven inside theirs from which Granzien and Sato were still absent, thankfully.

"Explain yourself," he said brusquely as soon as the door had closed behind them.

"Gee, can't y…" Raven stopped herself from finishing that comment, as she knew that demanding Eeth to stop riding her would go over like a fart in an elevator. The padawan coughed unnecessarily. She had returned late to the banquet after having gotten caught up satiating Kaal's curiosity regarding the Force and how the Jedi used it. It was futile, Raven knew that; he would never learn to harness the Force as Jedi did, but that was beside the point. Still, it was important to keep Prince Daimus' personal assistant onside, and to gain his trust. At least that was the angle Raven planned on taking to get herself off Eeth's shit list. Yeah.

"I'm sorry I was late." Because apologising was always a good way to start. "It was like Kaal said. He was interested in the Force and insisted that I help him learn more about it. I also thought it might help to gain his trust because he'd be more inclined to tell me things if I was obliging in return."

"And how did that compel you to return late?" Eeth asked icily. "I had to keep ten diplomats, two droids and a shuttle driver waiting because you were not there when we were supposed to leave."

Okay, so the fact that her apology had fallen flat was condemning; this was not going well, and it was time to switch tactics. "It didn't compel me," Raven looked reflective for a moment. "But if I say that something did, would you still be mad?" Humour was a long shot because Eeth didn't have a sense of humour at the best of times.

"This is a hypothetical question," Eeth snapped, "which has no bearing on our discussion. So, do you have an excuse for being late, yes or no?"

"Yes. I was helping fortify relations with our hosts. Such niceties are implied in our mandate," Raven explained with every ounce of self-assurance she could muster. When facing off against Eeth, finding such assurance, nerve and courage was a feat in and of itself.

"And if you had gone to the trouble of returning in time," Eeth asked, now in a voice of deadly calm, "that would have damaged relations with our hosts how, exactly?"

Fuck. Raven was digging herself deeper each time she opened her mouth here. Was attempting to lie about having been late on purpose going to be a good or bad thing? Bad, it had to be bad! That statement ran counter to Kaal's apology, and Eeth would be all over that. The long pause was killing her credibility with every second that ticked by here! "Uh."

Eeth lost what little remained of his patience at that point. He turned her to face the wall, bent her forward, pushed her robes aside and, ignoring Raven's last-minute attempts at begging, applied a scorching swat to the seat of her pants.

"I am waiting for an answer," he informed her, emphasising this statement with a second swat.

Raven opened her mouth to start talking, because the force behind that first swat had rattled her teeth, only to have the breath she had saved wasted on a wail. "OWw!" An arm flew back to protect herself from further swats, but it was entirely ineffective given the way Eeth held her. "I didn't do it on purpose. I know how prickly you get about punctuality! I swear it! I don't have any excuse, I just lost track of time." All that came out in a rush, but at least she had gotten it out before further swats were added.

"I thought as much," Eeth said coldly, letting go of her. "When I give you a time to meet me, I do expect you to mind me. Especially during a mission. Eleven people and two droids were kept up because you did not care to look at your watch. If you want to talk about diplomatic damage, you might think about the damage this could have done."

He nodded towards the dining room. "Bare your bottom and bend over a chair," he ordered. "I will fetch my paddle and give you a reminder of my expectations."

"Aww!" Raven whined, swiping at her face with her sleeve; she wasn't crying, but nor was she at all happy about receiving those orders. Still, she wasn't willing to risk making it any worse by arguing with him, so, she dragged her feet towards the chair and began to do as told. "I already got a reminder, though, and it hurt already!" the padawan protested loudly enough to be heard and reluctantly dropped her trousers.

Without responding, Eeth went to fetch his paddle. He typically did not go quite as far as to carry it to diplomatic functions. There was no way he was going to paddle Raven in public during such events anyway.

Returning to the dining room, he said: "The reminder you received was for refusing to give honest and appropriate answers to my questions. This is for your tardiness. As you correctly pointed out, I am never particularly tolerant about this. And that goes twofold during a mission. Now, you were eleven minutes late. And the number of swats you will receive will reflect that."

He raised the paddle and brought it down onto Raven's bottom with considerable force.

"Wait, what?" but it was too little too late. "Ow!" The padawan rose up on to her toes because that had fucking hurt! It was a trend that continued as the next few landed. Raven stomped her foot and twisted to little avail because Eeth still managed to land the horrid thing exactly where she didn't want it regardless of her writhing. By six she was sniffling, and by nine Raven had stopped begging and started crying.

Unperturbed, Eeth completed the eleven swats he meant to deal out. Then he stuck the paddle into his belt and said "You may get up."

Raven shot up like a spring, both hands flying to her backside in an effort at rubbing out the sting while she hopped from foot to foot and tried not to tangle herself in her trousers. "Owww!" she continued whining, not caring that she was perhaps not taking this with as much dignity as she ought to.

"If this happens again during this mission, I will give you two swats for every minute you are late," Eeth said sharply. "We are on serious business, and timing is essential. On other occasions, lives may depend on it. So you had better make more of an effort in the future. Now. I have ordered a speeder with a driver that will be at our entrance in –" he glanced at his chronometer – "fifteen minutes. We will spend the afternoon looking at the sites of the coronation ceremony and checking for security hazards. Use the remaining time to clean yourself up a little."

Still sniffling, the padawan pulled up her trousers and ran for her bedroom. Her ass burned, but the cold tiles helped a little with that. Fifteen minutes was not a long time, especially when all Raven wanted to do was sit on her bathroom floor, sniffle and sulk. Lives had not depended on it this time, though, she muttered to herself, wallowing in self-pity.

When she emerged exactly fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, the padawan was still pouting. She had not forgiven him, despite the punishment having been deserved. "Harsh," she accused, letting that one word speak volumes.

Eeth did not care for any of what those volumes implied. He grabbed her ear, bent her forward and gave her another of his trademark swats that rang off the walls.

Given that Eeth had just paddled the bejesus out of her barely fifteen minutes ago, Raven thought it safe enough to risk a little sulking. Apparently, she had been mistaken! The yowl she let out in response was deafening and she started sniffling all over again.

"You may tell me why the punishment you just received was well-deserved," Eeth growled. "Right now, within thirty seconds. Or, if you find yourself unable to do so, I will inform the driver that we will be delayed and I will take the time to explain it to you myself. With you over my knee. Your choice." There were a lot of things that Eeth had no tolerance for, besides tardiness. Pouting and sulking over punishment was definitely among them.

"No, wait!" Raven sniffled, because that was not much of a choice! She did absolutely not want to go over his knee; in fact, sitting down was going to be bad enough as it was for the rest of the day. Thirty seconds was not a very long time, especially so when your ass was on fire. "Because I didn't show up when you told me to, and this is serious business where timing is important, and it could have done diplomatic damage, and I tried to get out of it. No more," Raven sniffled. She wasn't crying, but it was getting close to that again.

"I had no intention of giving you more before you started complaining," said Eeth releasing his hold on her. "Stop sulking. It is not going to make me feel bad about having punished you but it might quite possibly add to your own troubles. Now let us go. The pilot will be waiting."

Raven had indeed been trying to make him feel bad! It had not worked. In fact, each time Raven tried doing something like that it had backfired. Eeth was being harder on her than usual, though; perhaps it was because they were on a mission? Raven didn't know. What she did know was that despite doing her best to clean herself up, it was still obvious to anyone who knew anything about humans that she had been crying. It was also obvious why when she sat down in their speeder, Eeth's latest instalment having reignited the fire. Still, Raven did her best to hide her discomfort. Despite wanting to throw Eeth an accusatory look, she refrained from doing so, if only because she did not want a repeat.

Eeth gave the driver a few short instructions, then leaned back into his seat.

"The main coronation ceremony will take place tomorrow, at the largest square in the city," he said. "We, along with the other diplomats, will be seated on one of the palace balconies, but there will also be huge crowds on the square and in the streets. It is the perfect opportunity for initiating unrest. Of course, for that precise reason, there will be strict security measures in place. We will want to get a good overview of the site, of possible access and escape routes and security hazards."

"Alright," Raven replied and leant forward to examine the onboard holo machine more carefully. It did not take more than a look from Eeth to tell the padawan that flicking it on would not be wise, though. And so she did not.

The palace was not far from their guest quarters, and so their ride was blissfully short, much to Raven's relief. Eeth led them directly to the topmost floor. From here they would have the best view of the overall layout and meet with the security teams who would be on duty during the ceremony. There was also an enormous balcony that encircled the entire floor. Raven waited quietly while Eeth spoke with the local security teams in place for tomorrow's festivities. "I'll start checking out the balcony?" Raven said when there was a pause in the conversation. It had started as a statement but ended as a question; this was a mission and she needed to follow Eeth's lead, of course.

"Yes, but be back in five minutes, and do not leave the balcony," Eeth said curtly before returning his attention to the security official he had been talking to. He was planning on going down and examining the square more closely soon.

Five minutes was not very long at all, but Raven strode off all the same. From up here, she could see down into the square and its surrounds. There were any number of smaller alleyways that could be used to sneak in unnoticed, as well as several adjacent buildings that were being worked on and currently had sections open with only thin protection from the elements in place. Raven took all of this in, and then she returned to Eeth's side five minutes later to the second; there was no way Raven was going to be late for anything ever again, not ever.

Eeth had just wrapped up his conversation. He led Raven down a stairway and towards the front entrance of the building.

"This is the only entrance that will be open tomorrow," he explained. "All the side entrances will be blocked, and the building will be searched tonight to make sure that no assassin hides in there overnight. Now, I want you to keep a close eye on our surroundings and look for opportunities to attempt an assassination or to cause riots. Tell me whatever comes to your mind. We will circle the area first, then have a closer look at critical spots."

Raven nodded at his instructions. She followed him for the first ten minutes or so, but then started to find her own and began branching off.

Eeth had explained how to mentally divide the area up into quadrants and that by doing this, it made a large area easier to search and secure. Putting his theory to the test, Raven went about checking each of her sections. There were a couple of trouble spots, which she reported back. "Section C is vulnerable to attack from the east as some of the wall has been knocked down, although most of it is still there and providing protection for sections A and D," she explained. Raven looked contemplative for a moment. "Do you suspect an attack?" It was a fair question given that they were here at a ceremonial capacity, although Raven couldn't hide that she was perhaps a little excited by the idea.

"An occasion like this always offers a temptation for such attempts, especially as we know that there is a small, but fierce and influential opposition," Eeth replied. "We do not have concrete evidence pointing to a plot, but nor do we want to run any risks. Thank you for drawing my attention to the missing part of the wall. We will ask the security officials about it."

He discussed the matter with a security officer who told him that several roles of barbed wire were going to be delivered to the spot in question and were to be installed this afternoon.

"Now that we have checked the ground, how about the rooftops?" Eeth asked Raven. "Let us go around and see whether there is any way to get access to them without having to pass the security barriers."

The pair split up again as this was the more effective way to search. Raven took the left route, while Eeth began searching from the right. The padawan tried to imagine how she would go about inconspicuously gaining access to the roof if she had to, and ran through the options that would be available given the structure. It wouldn't be easy, that much was for sure.

"It seems pretty safe to me, unless, of course, someone can use the Force or is lucky enough to own a set of rocket boots. A rope gun might work, but given the angle of the overhang, they would have to be quite fit, not to mention invisible, to pull that off," said Raven upon meeting up with Eeth in the middle some time later.

"So you saw no possible opening?" Eeth inquired. "Somewhere that someone well-equipped might get in unseen, however much planning it would require? Remember, we might be dealing with arms smugglers here. Equipment might not be an issue for them."

"Perhaps. There is an unbarred window about six meters up on the far side of the main building. If someone had the will and the skill, that would be a place they could possibly do it." Raven suggested.

Eeth nodded. "Yes. A very good point. I was looking for one or two such openings. We will leave that window as it is and place an invisible sensor there."

"A sensor? Wouldn't it be better to bar up the window like the others? I mean, if we are going to the lengths of fixing up walls, wouldn't it be better to take the opportunity away altogether, rather than setting a trap?" Raven was curious to know what he had planned. Actually, excited was probably a closer adjective; this was what she had trained all her life to do!

"If we do not leave them any opening, potential assassins might either feel under pressure to create one, by forceful means, or postpone their attempt until we have left," Eeth explained. "I would rather have them use an opportunity we know of, at a time when we can deal with it, than use or create one we cannot anticipate. We are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. A determined assassin will nearly always find a way. Provided, of course, that there is an assassin, which might not be the case."

"But it might be the case," Raven couldn't help but point out, a smile on her face that was all teeth. Okay, so it was not very Jedi-like to be excited about the possible assassination of the future king, but still, Raven had been training for this her entire life!

For the next hour, the pair checked every nook and cranny, not leaving a single stone unturned. Once Eeth was satisfied with their efforts, they began making their way back, doing a final check as they passed through the area again. Raven had stopped to look at some red and purple furred rodent that had scurried in fright when she had accidently taken the top off its home checking for possible hideouts.

"Master, check this out," she yelled. Raven was doing her best to calm it down but it was clear that this guy didn't live here by design. He was the wrong colour, for starters, and far more suited to the woods. What it was doing in here was anyone's guess.

Eeth came to check, examining the animal briefly. "It is a beetrin," Eeth said. "Native to a host of planets by now, especially in areas with subtropical and tropical climates. They live in the woods. When colonists encroach into their habitats, it happens that they stray into the city but they are not happy here. They are afraid of people. If you can use the Force to calm it down, we can take it and drop it off outside the city on our way to Sesimore."

Raven closed her eyes and concentrated. It took her a good five minutes, but eventually, and after a few disasters, the creature was calm enough to approach. She spread out her hands and waited for it to become comfortable enough to climb into them. "That was much harder than the scorcher. Do they have some sort of natural resistance to the Force?" Raven asked, standing with the critter in her hands.

"I do not think so," said Eeth as he led Raven back to the speeder, "but unlike scorchers, they have a natural fear of humanoids, and larger beings in general. Connecting to them through the Force will not automatically eliminate their inborn fears and instincts. At some point, you will learn to use Force compulsions strong enough to completely override a creature's own impulses, at least if the creature is not Force-sensitive, but that skill should be used with extreme care and only in desperate situations. If we did not respect other beings' free will, we might as well coerce the Chancellor into turning the Republic over to the Jedi. In any case, we will drop the animal off at the edge of the nearest woods we pass and leave it to its own devices."

"I wouldn't object to that; I'm sure the Jedi would do a far better job of it than a bunch of politicians," Raven remarked while climbing into their piloted speeder.

"Much in contrast to the Jedi, they are elected politicians," Eeth remarked, a hint of disapproval in his voice.

Raven blew that off, as her mind had already skipped to the next part of his statement that interested her. "Can you teach me how to use Force compulsions? – And, can you teach me some time today?" Raven tacked on quickly, knowing that even if he did say yes, it was very likely to be closely followed by something like: 'when you're older'. Those three words were every padawan's worst nightmare, she was sure of it.

"I will teach you at some point," Eeth said decisively, "but certainly not today, nor any time soon."

"Now how did I know you were going to say that?" Raven replied, disappointed. "If I get kidnapped by space pirates between now and then, and my only escape is to use a Force suggestion, it's totally your fault. Just saying."

"I will not allow space pirates to kidnap you before you have mastered that skill, then," Eeth said severely.

"From he who claims not to be omniscient nor omnipotent." It was cheeky, she knew that, but it was also half-hearted; Raven was teasing him. How this playfulness was accepted by Eeth was always a bit hit and miss.

Eeth shot her his best trademark glare.

"Nor will you be, even when you have mastered the ability to mind-control others," he snapped.

Yep, one order of balloon, heavy on the lead, thought Raven. She did not comment, though.

"Padawan," Eeth said sternly. "First of all, we are on a mission, and unless there is a pressing need for it, I will not start teaching you new skills at all this week. Besides, this is a very advanced skill. It requires supreme control of the Force and extremely good judgment on when to use it and when not to. You will need to improve your meditation skills significantly before you have any chance of success. Even in the unlikely event that you managed to fully master this technique at the current stage of your training, I would not want you to employ it for several years at least. Is that clear?"

"Yes, master," Raven acquiesced. Sure, it was a skill she wanted to learn, but it wasn't worth pissing him off over.

After a brief stop to drop off the beetrin, Eeth and Raven arrived at their destination. It was the place where the king was going to address his people, the day after the coronation, and needed to be checked for security hazards as well. The pair wandered the grounds as they had with the last, the occasional pop quiz question on what to look for the only break in their companionable silence.

Finally, Eeth led Raven back to the speeder.

"We will return to our quarters now, but only briefly," he said. "Tonight, we are required to attend a banquet at the palace. It is held in honour of the parting king, and everyone who has rank and name on this planet will be there. I will introduce you to a great number of people, and I ask you to be attentive. You know what kind of information we are looking for, but do not walk around asking people about it. Listen rather than talk. We do not want to arouse any suspicions. Alright?"

"Aww, you totally ruined my strategy. I planned to construct a banner and acquire a megaphone." She shot him a look that was not dissimilar to the one he treated her to when he failed to find humour in one of her jokes.

Completely ignoring her remark and look, Eeth said: "I do not actually anticipate finding anything of interest tonight. Senator Izz Whee might have an easier time of it; he has some useful contacts. In any case, the banquet will give you a good impression of the Fenestrian aristocracy."

"I can hardly wait…"

The rest of what little remained of their time was spent either preparing for the evening's festivities, i.e.: going over the guest list, and Eeth drilling Raven on security measures and the like. He did give her half an hour to go swimming, which Raven thoroughly enjoyed. She emerged from the outdoor pool shared by the other guests staying at their suite, swaddled herself in a towel and ran, still dripping, through their door to find Eeth. She was right on time.

"Padawan, dry yourself properly before you drip water all over the floorboards," Eeth admonished her as soon as the door had closed behind her.

Raven threw the towel at her feet and jumped on it to prevent further dripping.

"You look like a little prune," Sato commented from her spot on a divan. She and Granzien had gotten back shortly after Eeth and Raven had returned, and spent their time organising their findings onto data chips.

"So you do," Granzien said with a smile, looking up from his datapad. "Did you have a good day?"

Raven paused, but only for a split second; he didn't need to know that she had been late back from the banquet and the trouble that had landed her. Instead, she said: "Yes! We explored the palace and it surrounds for tomorrow. What did you two do? More plants?"

"More plants," Sato confirmed, inputting the last one into her pad.

"Dry and comb your hair and pull on a clean uniform," Eeth told Raven. "We need to leave for the banquet."

"Sounds riveting," Granzien remarked, leaning back and stretching. "We'll pass, I think."

"As a matter of fact, you are not invited," Eeth informed him, raising an eyebrow.

Granzien grinned, not rising to the slight provocation. "Pity."

Sato snorted, ignoring Raven as she ran off with far more enthusiasm than necessary given that they were going to some dumb banquet. "Perhaps we could remain uninvited?" she hedged, not looking up from her datapad to look at Eeth. "We could sure use the extra time tomorrow for research."

"Well, we ARE invited to the coronation," Granzien pointed out drily. "We can't uninvite ourselves."

"You sure about that? I thought as Jedi we were all about making it happen." She shifted her gaze to look over at Granzien now. "About getting the job done."

"Depends on what kind of job we want to get done," Granzien said with a shrug. "Being a Jedi is not about following your whims, you know."

Eeth did not think he had ever agreed with Granzien this much. "Precisely," he said sternly. "We are not going to discuss this any further. You are coming."

Sato could argue that; this had nothing to do with whims and everything to do with not going to that coronation. She wasn't about to start an argument with their mission leader, though, and so she said nothing.

Raven emerged some time later, dressed in her formal Jedi robes and dragging a comb through her hair. "What are you two going to do while we're out having all the fun?" she asked.

Sato rolled her eyes; apparently Raven was more naive than she first thought.

"Probably have a swim, eat, and turn in early," Granzien said, getting up and stretching. "We'll have to get up early tomorrow, after all. We want to take another walk in the woods before the coronation. You go ahead and have all the fun. Unless your master feels it's inappropriate to have fun, that is."

He grinned. Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Whether or not we have 'fun' tonight is entirely inconsequential," he pointed out. "Come on, padawan. Once again, our driver is waiting for us."

Raven chuckled; she did like Granzien.

She had noticed her hair taking on a greenish tinge since last night, but had yet to mention it. Once they were out in the sunlight, though, she thought it was a bit more noticeable. "What's with my hair?" It wasn't exactly a question, but more of a statement. She pulled a part that was just long enough to reach before her eyes. Yep, it was definitely greener than last night.

Eeth frowned. "It does look slightly green," he said upon giving it a closer look. "When did you first notice this? Did you use a new shampoo? Something provided by the Fenestrians?"

"Last night. It's worse now, though. I used the shampoo they put in my shower, and no, I didn't read the label. I kinda assumed it would be safe." Raven wrinkled her nose, hoping to avoid a lecture over being inattentive.

"Yes, it should be," said Eeth, his frown deepening. "They would have made sure that the food and toiletries they provide are suitable for our species. Someone might have made a mistake. Or it might be something to do with the pool water – it first appeared and then worsened after you went swimming, did it not?"

"Yes," she replied, letting the chunk of hair she had been scrutinising go. Like her skin, Raven's hair was correspondingly fair. Thus, it did tend to take on colouring in things easily. She had made that mistake once and used a purple shampoo in creche, with disastrous results.

"We will ask the protocol droid about it," said Eeth, glancing at his chronometer, "and he will find out what can be done while we are at the reception. There is no time to resolve the issue now. Come." Given the multi-colored nature of the Fenestrians' skin and hair and the presence of a multitude of species at tonight's reception, he doubted that anyone would even notice Raven's peculiar hair color.

Raven followed without comment. She really didn't care what colour her hair was. There were far more exciting things to think about, in her opinion!

On the way out, Eeth asked the protocol droid about possible effects of the shampoo or pool water on blonde human hair and asked him to find a cure against said effects. The droid apologised so often that Eeth nearly became impatient. In any case, he was confident that by tomorrow morning, they would know what to do about the green tinge to Raven's hair. When that was accomplished, they finally entered a large speeder in which the other diplomats from Coruscant were already waiting, and left for the reception at the palace.

It seemed like no sooner had the speeder begun to move, that they arrived at their destination. A brightly dressed Fenestrian with an outrageously fancy hairdo was there to greet them upon arrival.

The two bowed and were led through the palace entrance into the main dining area. It was huge, as was the number of tables and the extent of their decorations. Well, Raven supposed that a banquet in honour of the parting king would have to be elaborate, even without the Fenestrians' knack for embellishing everything.

Protocol droids led the guests to their places. Eeth and Raven had the honor of being placed at the old and new king's table. Granted, it was a huge table. There were about fifty beings seated between them and the kings, most of them assigned to Fenestrian nobility but also including some high-ranking diplomats, such as themselves. Eeth knew that there would be a reception after dinner where they would have ample opportunity to mingle freely with everyone. For now, they had to endure about an hour of long-winded speeches in Fenestrian that were simultaneously translated into Basic.

It took Raven all of ten minutes to grow tired of the boring speeches, and her attention began to wander from the fat woman speaking to some of the more unusually dressed guests. She scanned down the table, her curious gaze resting on each diplomat just long enough to be considered polite, before moving to the next. The padawan jumped when her gaze landed on Kaal who, much to her surprise, was staring right back at her with a stupid grin on his face. She couldn't help but roll her eyes and used them to discreetly gesture towards the long-winded speaker who was just beginning yet another spiel on how pleased she was with the way things had progressed.

The two began a banter of discretely delivered hand signals, eye movements and gestures. Both were making it known to the other that they would rather be anywhere but here. Then, just as Raven was about to respond to a dig at her green hair, her own expression turned into a wince as Eeth sent her a scathing surge of disapproval through their bond. This immediately warned Kaal of trouble, and he turned just in time to catch quite a hard clip under the ear, and some hushed stern words from the man seated by his side.

In contrast to Daimus, Eeth had no intention to address Raven's antics in public. He was not going to forget about them, though, and the look he pointed at her told her as much. She had better be on her best behaviour for the rest of the night…


	4. Chapter 4

Raven sat quietly throughout the rest of the speeches. Kaal, who she had been fooling around with earlier, had gotten busted not paying attention. Raven had only risked a single glance at her friend to make sure he was okay after having copped a clip up the side of his head for his efforts. If the redness of his face was anything to go by, the only thing to be seriously injured was his pride. Well, he would live.

Dinner was boring and uneventful from Raven's perspective. All of her attempts to bring up anything even slightly political in nature were met with patient looks of disapproval, and the topic was either quashed or redirected back on herself. By the time she had finished explaining to the sixth tipsy noble how she had been raised as a Jedi and therefore could not harbour regrets over missing out on holidays, she was beginning to feel a little crestfallen at not having found out anything useful.

She projected her disappointment and mild frustration to Eeth who was busy conversing with his own group of nobles. At least the food was nice.

Eeth gave her a brief smile, along with a surge of encouragement through their bond. Their chances of gathering information during the meal had not been all that great, given that they were seated among off-world diplomats and aged Fenestrian nobles. Still, talking to these nobles had been worth a try and Eeth appreciated Raven's support. He himself had not had any more success than his padawan.

Shortly after dessert had been served and eaten, the parting and future king both rose from the table and started to move towards a large doorway that led to another huge hall where an orchestra was playing soft music and drinks were being served. A moment later, the guests one by one followed suit.

Eeth led Raven towards a group of Fenestrian nobility that were closely connected to the parting king. He knew one of them from previous dealings in a Senate committee, which gave him the perfect opening.

"Count Senira," Eeth addressed the oldest man in the group, along with a courteous bow. "Ladies, gentlemen. I am pleased to meet you. May I introduce my padawan learner, Raven Trebeck?"

Raven bowed, first to Count Senira, and then collectively to the others. "I'm pleased to meet you." And the padawan was actually not making that up. These people were interesting, if only she could get some information out of them!

There was not much else expected from her; the majority of the conversation was guided by Count Senira and Eeth and required little, if no, further input from her. It did draggggggg out horribly. Raven did her best, but she was still an eleven-year-old, and there was only so much standing around she could take. How much longer could this possibly last?

The answer to Raven's unspoken question was: for a rather long time. And Eeth did nothing to cut the conversation short – on the contrary. The group included some of Fenesteer's most powerful nobles, among them a few of the new king's fiercest opponents, and he was very interested in finding out about their views, however subtly expressed. Of course, he was not stupid enough to openly talk about politics; but their remarks about the celebration and about other guests in their vicinity revealed more than enough to him for the moment. He had no intention of leaving any time soon, however bored his padawan might be.

After about half an hour, Raven started to fidget. She hadn't done it intentionally, but she projected her feelings across her bond with Eeth.

Eeth was not as annoyed about this as he might have been. All in all, he was pleased that Raven endured what must be a boring conversation to her without being too obvious about her boredom. She could have looked more attentive than she did, but he knew that was probably too much to ask. Thus, he merely sent another brief surge of encouragement through their bond, rested his hand on her shoulder and continued talking.

It took them well over an hour until the group dissolved and Eeth steered Raven directly over to the next group, which consisted of a mix of younger Fenestrian nobles and diplomats.

Raven let out a sigh of relief that morphed into a groan as they were in yet another situation identical to the last. She continued standing quietly, though, until one of the younger members of the group asked her opinion on Fenesteer's latest diplomatic situation, to which she managed to give an equally diplomatic response. Just.

Eeth knew that this was hard on Raven but it could not be helped. And since her future contained many more similar situations, she would simply have to learn to deal with it. The evening dragged on until around midnight when the old king decided to take his leave. At this cue, the guests immediately started moving towards the exits as well.

Oh thank the Force! Not that Raven said as much. She kept quiet and continued to fantasise about returning to their quarters and going for a late-night swim!

A shuttle was waiting for them and the other inhabitants of their guest house. Upon their arrival, a protocol droid was already expecting them in order to present them with a neutralising agent for the greenish tinge in Raven's hair. He confirmed that it was caused by pool chemicals and ensured that a tonic which would prevent the same thing from occurring again had been placed into her refresher.

"Thank you," Eeth said. He accepted the bottle and ushered Raven into their quarters.

"I think trying this can wait until tomorrow morning," he told her. "I was pleased with your behavior during the reception, padawan. I was not quite as pleased with your behavior during the banquet, though."

He pinned her with a stern look.

Raven opened her mouth to protest that she had just endured six hours of hell when Sato, who had woken at the sound of the door opening, entered the common room area on her way to the kitchen. She took in their expressions and snorted. "Had a fun evening, I see."

"It was. You shouldn't be out of bed," Raven stated, folding her arms and managing to look dignified.

"And who are you to tell me what I should and should not be doing?"

Before Raven could retort, however, Eeth shot a stern look at her. "There is no need for you to be out of bed, and we have no need for attempts to antagonise others either," he said. "Go back to your room."

"If you hadn't made such a racket coming in, I might have. I want a drink." Sato left them to it, going to the dining area and finding herself some water. She took her time drinking it, too.

Raven just glared at her.

"There is no need for you to be in the dining room to drink a glass of water," Eeth told Sato, suspecting that the girl was enjoying the slight provocation a little too much. "Go back to your room. I need to have a word with my padawan and you need your sleep. And I will thank you to talk to me respectfully."

Sato was enjoying this, but she wasn't actually crazy enough to push it too far. Thus, she put down her glass and returned to her bedroom.

Fortunately for Raven, the lights were dimmed and Sato could not see the extent to which her hair had developed. It was now an ombré; blonde with green tips!

Raven looked up at Eeth, hoping to avoid the conversation, but given the look on his face, it didn't seem likely. "They were speaking for the sake of speaking, and, Kaal knew it, too," she said in her defence.

"That is what happens during official occasions," Eeth said. "There will be a lot of speeches, they will rarely be interesting and everyone will know it. And yet, you did not see me or any other diplomats or politicians pull grimaces, did you?"

Raven huffed. "No, master." Because what else could she say to that?

"Being polite is part of our job description," Eeth said sternly, "especially on a diplomatic mission. If you are under the impression that we are undertaking this mission for your personal entertainment, think again."

"If it were for my own personal entertainment, I would have chosen something far more interesting than some boring-ass speeches," Raven shot back. She wasn't happy at being told off over this and it showed. "It isn't like I started heckling her or anything."

Without losing a beat, Eeth bent Raven over at the waist and delivered three sharp swats to her backside.

"No, wait. Waiiittt!" But it was too late.

"I am not interested in any of your backtalk," Eeth said sharply. "When I correct you, I expect you to accept the correction gracefully and respectfully, without arguing or making derogatory remarks. Is that quite understood, or will we have to discuss the matter more thoroughly?"

Raven was convinced that Eeth's hand was carved from a firethorn tree. That had fucking hurt, and she jumped around. Well, as much as anyone could jump around while pinned under an arm. It wasn't enough to have her all apart, but it certainly got her attention. "Yes, understood, and no! I'm sorry." It came out in a rush, but Raven did absolutely not want to continue any discussion that took place like this. For one thing, it was entirely undignified; for another thing, it hurt.

"Good," said Eeth, releasing his hold on her. "Since you managed to pull yourself together during the banquet, which I know was not easy, I will let this go. This time. Now let us go to bed. We have another long day coming up tomorrow."

The second Eeth released her, Raven started rubbing. She still wasn't happy about being told off over this but had the wherewithal to refrain from making further comments. She gave a curt bow and ran for her bedroom.

She was overtired. After all, it wasn't every night the padawan got to stay up past midnight. In fact, it was the very first time since becoming a padawan that Eeth had let her stay up past ten. Raven had, of course, ignored her bedtime once when studying for her hand-to-hand combat class. Yeah, that had not ended well. Raven didn't think for very long that night. Her bed was so comfortable that she was asleep almost instantly, despite the lingering discomfort.

The next morning, Eeth rose early. He decided to let Raven sleep a little longer and work on a preliminary report for the Council in the meanwhile. Granzien and Sato had, of course, already left. But Granzien knew they needed to be back at nine in order to start preparing for the coronation ceremony. Getting into Fenestrian ceremonial robes would take each of them at least an hour, with the help of an experienced protocol droid. Timing was essential today…

* * *

Sato let out a put-upon sigh as Granzien landed their speeder in the woodlands sector that they were currently working in. She had spent a good chunk of their trip trying to convince her mentor that the coronation was a waste of their time, and although he tended to agree, he would not relent and they were still going.

"Stop giving me a hard time about this," Granzien said mildly. "We have two hours until we need to return to the guest house. Let's make use of that time. We can have another go with the chennek flowers as long as they're still at their strongest, and then we can split up and look for odasset trees."

"Alright," Replied Sato. By sixteen she knew that to argue further would be futile, and she would only end up pissing him off. Not that she had ever seen Granzien pissed off; he seemed quite cavalier and easy-going. She liked that about him.

Half an hour later, they did indeed split up, Sato heading north towards the foot of the mountains, and Granzien towards the south. With only an hour and a half to search, Sato was wondering if there was any point coming out today at all. The stupid coronation was ruining everything. Or was it! An hour passed in which she found several samples, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found next.

Sato couldn't believe her eyes. About twenty-five meters up, hanging off the side of a rock ledge, was what looked like a Markumi orchid. This was a very rare species of Force-sensitive plant that only lived in very remote locations. It was said that if a Force-sensitive being bonded with the orchid, it could extend their life. Naturally, finding one of these was high on Sato's and Granzien's list. So far they had found no trace of it, which had led them to believe that, as speculated by others, the species might have died out.

This was too good to be true. She glanced at her watch. If she climbed up, there was no way of making it back to the speeder by the time Granzien had specified. Well, this day was just getting better and better. She pulled a rope gun from her pack, because there was just no way she was going to postpone examining this find in order to make it back for some dumb coronation. That was Eeth's and Raven's gig, not theirs. Besides, this was the perfect excuse; her mission mandate should supersede Eeth's coronation, or so she reasoned as she climbed the side of the cliff wall.

As a result, when Granzien returned to the speeder at half past eight sharp, Sato was nowhere to be seen. His sense of her through the Force was not very good since they did not share a training bond, but he did have a vague idea of where she was, and it was nowhere near close enough to be back within the next few minutes. Frowning, he pulled out his comlink and called her.

Sato, however, was halfway up the side of a cliff face, and her comlink had been dumped, along with any other unnecessary weight, at the base with her pack. She was taking her time with this. If she fell, it would cause serious injuries, and if there was one thing her master had drilled into her, it was not to take unnecessary risks with one's safety. This was not an unnecessary risk, but still, Sato was mindful to keep her focus on the task at hand. Injuries on missions, even research missions, were to be avoided if at all possible.

Granzien cursed. He sent a message to Eeth saying that they would be delayed because Sato had gone missing. It was unlikely that this was going to buy the girl any favours with Eeth but that was her own problem. Granzien found it hard to believe that her absence did not have at least partly to do with her rather obvious desire to miss out on the coronation ceremony. He made for the speeder and took off in the direction in which he sensed her. It brought him into her immediate vicinity in minutes but the lack of a bond between them meant that he could not locate her with any degree of precision and he could not see her either because they were in the middle of a jungle, with huge trees and undergrowth covering the entire slope of the mountain.

He tried to call her again on his comlink and, when that failed, yelled "SAAAAATOOOOOOO" at the top of his voice.

Alas, by the time Sato heard Granzien's calls, she was dangling from the rocky overhang about twenty-five meters up. She had dropped one sample collection vial, and was just going for the other one when she noticed him approaching the base of the cliff where her comlink and pack had been left. "UP HERE!" she shouted down, but kept her concentration on the task. It was indeed a Markumi orchid, so she had to be very careful not to accidentally damage it. Sato knew how to collect samples from Force-sensitive plants and was eager to bond with this one. That would have to wait, though, as she needed Granzien's guidance for that part. Sweating, the padawan carefully extracted a sample, tucking it into her pant pocket.

"Come down here, right now," Granzien ordered in a rather exasperated tone of voice. "We're later than late already and I'm pretty sure you know it."

She did, but was not about to let on. Sato released the cord lock on her line and sailed to the ground, bouncing off the cliff face with her boots as she came down. Both feet hit dirt at the same time. It was a nice landing if she did say so herself. "You'll never guess what I found up there?" she stated, more than asked, before he could start hurrying her along, and pulled the vial from her pocket.

Granzien raised his eyebrows as he sensed, sooner than saw, what she meant.

"A Markumi orchid," he said, impressed. "That is quite some find." For a moment, he was distracted, trying to tune in with the plant. Then he remembered that they were already late.

"Sato, we needed to be back at the guest quarters ten minutes ago," he said. "You should have called me before heading off on an excursion that you must have known would delay us. We would have come back tonight or tomorrow. The Markumi orchid wouldn't have run away. That is one thing that plants don't usually do. – Well, except for the walking korrok trees on Kar Kax V, that is," he thought to add, whereupon he realised that he was again at risk of being distracted. "Anyway," he said resolutely, "there is no time for this. Get into the speeder and be quick about it."

Sato obeyed, vaulting into their speeder. "This is more important, though. I never thought I'd see one of these in my lifetime and now there is one right there, and you want to go back to entertain people? That's what Eeth and Raven are there for." Sato wasn't willing to let this go right now, but orders were orders, which was why the padawan was sitting in the co-pilot's seat and not climbing back up the cliff. With any luck, Eeth and Raven had left without them by the time they returned, she could only hope.

"No, it's our job as well," Granzien said sharply, taking the speeder up above the trees. "And you know it. As you know that going for the Markumi orchid, instead of getting back on time, wasn't your decision to make. You had a comlink. You could have used it to check with me. Why didn't you?"

Because she didn't want to risk that he might say no, that was why. Aloud, however, Sato just stared at him, seemingly dumbfounded. "It's a Markumi orchid. Did you miss some part of that?" It was a little on the brazen side, and certainly more cheek than she would have given her own master, but Granzien had been nothing but comradely so far.

That was fast starting to change, however, because Granzien was not dumb. He knew exactly what Sato was doing and it did not impress him.

"It wouldn't have walked away," he retorted coolly. "Did you miss some part of that? – Sato, were you aware that you were making us late, yes or no?"

Sato frowned, ignoring his first statement. To the second, however, she replied: "Well, of course I was, I thought I'd be doing us both a favour there. Besides, as I said, this is no small discovery. We're unlikely to find anything like this again. That we did on Eeth and Raven's pseudo mission has to be some sort of miracle in and of itself."

"It would still have been a miracle tomorrow," Granzien snapped. He never had snapped at Sato before but right now, he felt anything but tolerant of her attitude. "And, no, you didn't do us a favour. Nor was it your decision to make. It was mine. You knew that perfectly well and yet, you didn't bother to ask me, probably because you suspected that I wouldn't allow you to delay us. You've been nothing but arrogant and downright rude about this part of our mission duties. I'm not going to stand for it any longer, and I assume neither will Eeth. You will comm him now and tell him that we're delayed and why. Specifically, tell him that we're late because of a decision you made, without consulting me. Inform him that we'll be back at a quarter to ten. He might still come up with a way for us to be ready in time for the coronation." Eeth had always been resourceful, after all. For all his dislike of Eeth, which, admittedly, had worn down a bit during the past days, Granzien knew that the man was highly competent and he had high confidence in his ability to find a solution for their problem. The same went for Eeth's ability to give Sato the dressing-down that she deserved, and then some. Which did not mean that Granzien would not want a piece of her hide himself before this was over!

Sato looked at him disbelievingly. He expected her to comm Eeth and say what now! Okay, so the padawan might be going through a bit of an arrogant stage in her apprenticeship, her master had said as much, but typically she did not outright disobey orders; she found ways around them. Apparently, this time she had failed in that. "You're serious?" she questioned him while reaching for her commlink, because she had to give him one last chance to be reasonable about this!

"Sato, do you take me for a pushover?" Granzien demanded to know. "I'm the Jedi master who's currently in charge of you, and let me tell you, I'm none too happy with your behaviour and your attitude. We're going to have a talk about duty, respect and obedience tonight. It's not going to be any fun for you and it's only going to get worse if you continue stalling."

It was hard to push Granzien to the point where he was seriously annoyed but Sato had done it now. What was worse was that he could already imagine the disparaging look Eeth would point at him for allowing a padawan to delay him this much. Which was one of the reasons for which he was ordering Sato to make this call; he wanted to make clear to Eeth that it had not been him who had not bothered to stick to their schedule. Besides, their delay was Sato's fault, so she might just as well be the one to face the music.

Alright, Sato needed a second to digest all of that. None of what Granzien had said boded well for her, that much was obvious. Reluctantly, the padawan input Eeth's code and waited.

Eeth had a hard time answering the call since he was currently standing rigidly, arms outstretched, while a protocol droid pinned ten layers of silk around his waist. He had been less than pleased with Granzien's message but had assumed the two would show up at some point, hopefully soon. That had not happened. Now, he had to ask the protocol droid to activate the comlink for him while he still stood, unmoving.

Sato couldn't help it, her lip curled at one edge at seeing Eeth dressed up like a pinata.

"What kept you?" Eeth snapped upon seeing Sato's hologram. "And more importantly, when will you be here?"

Sato's features reverted quickly at hearing his annoyance. She looked to Granzien, sighed at his unrelenting expression, and then focussed back on Eeth. "A decision I made without Granzien's knowledge. And, we'll be there in half an hour." It was about the best she could do under the circumstances.

Eeth calculated the time quickly. There was no way those two could get fitted into even a rudimentary version of ceremonial robes within a quarter of an hour.

"Alright," he said brusquely. "I will discuss this with the protocol droids and come up with a solution. When you arrive here, be ready to get changed fast. We will talk more about this later. I will mention it in our mission report, and your master will be notified as well, of course." With this, Eeth signalled to the protocol droid to terminate the call.

Sato was about to reply, but anything she might have said in her defence was cut short when the call was terminated. She looked sideways a Granzien, mouth pulled into a thin line.

"Don't even think of complaining," Granzien said. "You asked for that."

"I did not." It was a childish response, and Sato knew that. But what else could she say? Eeth was pissed, Granzien was pissed, her master and the Council were going to be pissed, and all because she didn't want to go to this stupid coronation.

"You absolutely did," Granzien said. "And you're more than old enough to know better. I might have expected something like this from Raven, not you. You're sixteen years old. You've probably been to dozens of diplomatic missions. You know how these things work and what depends on them, no matter how annoying they are. For the Force's sake, start acting your age."

This was so unexpected a response coming from Granzien that Sato just stared at him for the longest moment. When she finally found her voice, her shock had turned into anger. "I am acting my age! But if you don't think so, then fine, maybe I should just go back to the Temple and you can do all this on your own! See if I care." She did care, but wasn't about to let on.

Granzien's brows knitted into a frown. That Sato did care was beyond doubt but it was also beside the point. "That's another decision that's not yours to make," he told her. "Do me a favour and shut up before you dig yourself in even deeper." He hated having to deal out punishment and there was already more than enough of that in his near future without Sato exacerbating the problem. He supposed she had gotten the impression that, with him in charge, nobody was really going to expect her to mind her orders or treat her fellow team members with respect. Well, if that was the case, she was, unfortunately, in for a rude awakening. Granzien would have preferred to spend the mission without having to teach such lessons. But then, he had half expected something like this to happen, sooner or later. Sato's master had warned him it might, and her behaviour during the past few days had not exactly been reassuring as far as her willingness to participate in ceremonial duties was concerned. Thus, much as Granzien did not feel like it, he resigned himself to the inevitable.

Sato pulled out her sample of the Markumi orchid and pretended to inspect it. This mission had suddenly gone spiraling out of her control and she didn't know how to fix it, at least without admitting that she had messed things up. Sato did not want to have that conversation with anyone. All she wanted to do was go back to their guest quarters and bury herself in research until this all blew over. She knew better, though; her master never let her run from her problems and she wasn't the sort to indulge in such cowardice either.

When Granzien parked their speeder, Sato slinked out of the co-pilot's seat; she was in no rush.

Granzien felt that she ought to be, though.

"No dawdling," he said. "Hurry. Trust me, you really don't want to make things worse on yourself."

They entered their quarters to find Eeth and Raven nearly finished getting dressed. They had been fitted into insanely complicated robes with layers upon layers of pleats. The protocol droids were currently busy attaching some kind of voluminous sash to their torsos.

"There you are," said Eeth, shooting Sato a glare that clearly told her she was not off the hook. "Go to your bedrooms. You will find Fenestrian mourning clothes on your beds. I found out that during periods of mourning, people are forbidden from wearing ceremonial robes. Furthermore, it is considered bad manners to ask for the cause of your mourning. This was the only solution I could think of that will not cause confusion or be taken as an affront. So, you have fourteen minutes to pull on these clothes and make yourselves presentable."

His gaze strayed from Granzien's untidy hair to the mud on Sato's boots.

"Alright," said Granzien. "Thank you for organising this. Sato, let's get going, quickly."

Despite wanting to protest this, Sato did not. It was as good a solution as any, she knew, even if it meant that she still had to attend this stupid coronation. Like Granzien, Sato rushed to do as bade. The robes were complicated, but nothing like those that Eeth and Raven were trussed up in. Ridiculous, she thought while stripping off her Jedi attire. There was no time for a shower, so the robes were on a couple of minutes later, and her face was washed. When Sato exited her bedroom, she was dressed, appeared to be clean, did not smell and was still doing her hair.

Raven looked like she had had just about all she could take of standing around, and so when Sato entered and the protocol droid began fussing over the way in which she had tied her obi, Raven was relieved. Eeth was touchier than usual thanks to Granzien and Sato stuffing him around, though, and so she hadn't complained.

Granzien had undone and brushed his hair. He asked the protocol droid about the appropriate hairstyle and, to his relief, was told that Fenestrians in mourning generally wore their hair down. The protocol droids checked all four of them over and then they were ready to go.

"What happened?" Eeth asked Granzien in an undertone as they slowly made their way towards the exit, with the two padawans following behind. It was quite a feat not to trip over the ten layers of skirt Raven and he were wearing!

"Sato made quite a spectacular botanical discovery," Granzien replied quietly, "and used it as an excuse to climb a mountain slope, instead of returning to our meeting point in time. She was entirely aware that she was delaying us. She didn't check with me because she suspected I'd say no and when I tried to call her, she didn't answer. Since we don't share a training bond, it took me a while to locate her. I made quite clear to her that none of this was acceptable. And I'll discuss it further with her tonight."

Sato cleared her throat. She couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but it was clear that they were talking about her. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind them that she was right here, but before anything could be said by anyone, they had to interrupt their talk as they came across a group of other elaborately dressed diplomats and greeted them politely.

Only when they had entered the shuttle could Eeth and Granzien withdraw to a corner and continue their conversation; nobody was sitting down for fear of messing up their robes.

"Someone will need to call her to task," Eeth told Granzien grimly. "In a way that she will not soon forget. Do you feel up to that or will I have to step in?"

Granzien returned his glare with a steady look of his own. "Eeth, I am a Jedi master," he said coolly. "I have trained a padawan of my own. There is no need whatsoever to patronise me."

There was a brief pause. Then Eeth said in a slightly strained voice: "You are right. Forgive me. That was uncalled for."

"No offense taken," Granzien said, surprised. He might have expected many things from Eeth but an apology was not among them. His respect for the Zabrak Jedi rose by a notch or two.

"In any case," he continued, "much as I hate such things, I will make sure to leave a strong impression on her. Nevertheless, as the leader of this mission, you should talk to her as well. She seemed quite put out about your intention to put this in the mission report and inform her master. It would be good if you affirmed that intention and made clear to her why this is warranted."

Eeth nodded. "I will," he said.

Fortunately for everyone involved, mostly Sato, Eeth's and Granzien's conversation could not be overheard thanks to a combination of their shuttle's engine, and others talking around them.

Raven had her own set of problems, most of which involved walking without tripping over the ten layers of skirt she had been wrapped up in. She did not yet share Sato's distaste for such things as it was all still pretty new to her. Force, just about everything they did was new to Raven. Besides, her hair, although tied into an elaborate braid, was no longer green thanks to the solution the protocol droid had given her, and so she was feeling more confident than the last time they'd stepped out.

As they left the shuttle, Eeth positioned Raven at his side while Granzien and Sato walked behind them. They were led up a long and broad alley, slowly and gravely, as part of a huge procession of diplomats and dignitaries.

"Padawan," Eeth murmured, quietly enough that only Raven would hear. "In the unlikely event that there is an assassination attempt of any kind, tear off your obi and your skirts will come off. They would only get in the way."

"Yes, master," Raven replied quietly as they walked up the alley. She had no idea how fast she would be able to do this, given how long it had taken to get into them to begin with, but she thought it was doable. The scenario of having to chase after an assassin in her underpants, however, had not really occurred to her.

Thankful that the trip did not take very long, as the long gown was cumbersome to move in. Raven followed Eeth to a balcony where the four Jedi were seated among a host of other guests. Since they were considered particularly important, they were seated in the front row in between two Senators, in front of a large area that was kept free for the actual coronation. The square was packed with crowds of people, and an orchestra was playing Fenestrian festival marches.

"Padawan, we are among the most important diplomatic guests here," Eeth murmured to Raven. "Not to mention the most visible. Please keep that in mind and act accordingly. The new king will appear on the balcony in a few minutes. We are supposed to rise, turn towards him and kneel. As soon as he comes to a halt, we sit down again. After that, it will be a long time of sitting and watching and being absolutely silent."

"Ooo, I can hardly wait," Raven replied dryly, but that was the extent to which she was willing to complain. Eeth was already displeased with Sato holding them up, and she didn't want to add to his woes … or would it be adding to her own? Probably the latter.

As Eeth had predicted, just a few minutes later the new king appeared on the balcony and everyone rose, turned and knelt. It was all very ritualistic, almost like steps in a dance, Raven thought.

What followed was quite possibly the most excruciatingly boring three hours of the young padawan's life. She had been wriggling in her seat until Eeth gave her a light swat to her thighs, fiddled with the tiny flowers sewn into her sleeve until Eeth gently smacked her hand, and started to bite at her thumb nail until Eeth firmly gripped her hand and put it back into her lap. Please, let this be the last one, thought Raven as the current speaker finally finished his turn. But alas, it was not to be and another soon replaced him. Frustrated, Raven sighed and started kicking at her chair leg with a heel. Eeth swatted her leg again, a lot less lightly than before, drawing a wounded look from her and a rather smug one from Sato. This was the last speech before the actual coronation. The speaker of parliament was already approaching with the crown from the back, everybody was looking up at them, and it was the worst possible moment for Raven to be fidgety. On the bright side, it could only last fifteen more minutes or so.

"Master, I gotta pee," she tried to send through their training bond. Force only knew what images Eeth actually received, but the padawan was going to go insane if Eeth didn't give her a break soon. Also, Raven had no idea how much longer this was going to drag out.

Eeth was not impressed. He was positive that his padawan's need was not that urgent, and even if it had been, there was no way she could go right now. She would have run into the man carrying the crown if she did, even though they could not see him right now! Thus, he merely gave her a stern look in response, accompanied by an equally stern reprimand through their bond. He knew that sitting still for this long must be quite an ordeal for his padawan, but she would simply have to endure it. He had noticed Sato's smug look and it had not escaped his attention either that at least two other diplomats and a few Fenestrian aristocrats had frowned at Raven's fidgeting. He just hoped that she would be able to rein in her temper and keep up appearances for a while longer.

Raven, too, noticed the snobby aristocrats. Sighing, and entirely unwilling to earn yet another swat for fidgeting, the padawan closed her eyes, took a breath and tried to release her frustration into the Force as Eeth had trained her to do. It wasn't easy. Raven still needed help with a lot of her Force work, but it was successful enough to keep her off Eeth's shit list, or at the very least, prevent her from racking up more points.

Finally, everyone stood, and then the congratulation started. Again, this went on for an unholy amount of time! At least if you asked Raven, which of course, nobody was likely to. When there was a break in the conversation, the padawan sent some pleading and begging across the bond she shared with Eeth.

Eeth was not much inclined to give in to Raven's pleas but Granzien, who had noticed her pitiful looks, was more lenient. "Sato, if you like, you may take a walk around and maybe use the restrooms," he told her quietly. "Take Raven if she wants to. And if Eeth consents to it."

Eeth hesitated briefly. "I do," he finally said. "But stay on this level. It will not take more than half an hour before we will be shepherded towards the reception."

So far, things were quiet, but a slight feeling of unease was niggling at the back of his consciousness. Before he could help it, he had thrown a brief look at Granzien to see whether he seemed worried, too.

"I sense something as well," said Granzien quietly. "But it's very far off and unspecific. We'll just have to be on our guard."

Meanwhile Raven was practically dragging Sato around the level; she didn't care what the older padawan said, they were making the most of not sitting still!

Sato actually didn't mind. She wasn't as impatient and not nearly as fidgety as Raven, but she would be lying if she said that the last few hours had not worn on her. Well, Sato was sixteen and well able to handle an eleven-year-old junior padawan and some boring diplomacy. She rolled her eyes at Raven's exuberance.

"Don't look so smug," Raven said upon noticing her expression. "It isn't like you have anything to be boasting about. My master was pretty pissed off about you making us all late. I'd hate to be you when he gets his hands on you." It didn't even occur to Raven that Granzien himself might want a piece of her.

"I'm a Jedi, that sort of thing doesn't scare me," Sato said bravely, not dropping the look of superiority.

Raven just snorted. Sato might be brave, but she didn't know any padawan who wasn't at least a bit apprehensive when having to face consequences. Especially so when it came to messing up on a mission. Eeth had told her that it was more important than ever to obey during missions as it was real, not a simulation; real lives could be lost.

It was on the tip of Sato's tongue to retort, but getting into an argument with an eleven-year-old over this wasn't going to help. Besides, she too just wanted to wander around and be free for a while.

Granzien and Eeth had stepped up to the railing of the balcony, gazing into the direction in which they sensed the disturbance.

"There is something going on. Something big is approaching," said Eeth quietly. "Like a mass of people. But it does not feel like a mass of people. Animals?"

"Definitely animals," Granzien agreed. "Get your padawan here."

Eeth looked at him in surprise. "She is eleven years old and has not been trained in this," he objected. Then he took a second to consider his options and said: "But you are right, she is our best bet."

He sent a sense of urgency to Raven through the Force; a request to come, immediately. He just was not sure whether it would be enough. Therefore, he accompanied it by sending her the emergency code on their comlink.

Raven's head whipped around to where she sensed Eeth, just as the emergency code on her comlink started sounding. She muted it and turned to Sato, but the girl was already scanning the crowds looking for the two masters.

"Something must have happened, come on," said Sato. It had not escaped her attention that Raven was the only one to be summoned, which left her more optimistic that this might not be something horribly serious.

When they arrived on the balcony, both Eeth and Granzien appeared focused on something.

"Master?" Raven looked a bit concerned now.

Sato, however, had taken in their focussed expressions and immediately reached out her senses; something was wrong.

Eeth pointed at one of the roads that opened onto the square. It led straight out of the city and into the forests and was thick with spectators and security forces.

"Stretch out your senses in that direction," he instructed quietly. "A herd of animals seems to be approaching. You are better at sensing animals than I am. Give it a try and tell me what you can find."

"Animals?" Raven raised her eyebrows. However, given Eeth's expression, she did as ordered. Focus had never come easy to the fidgety apprentice. This was serious, though, and so she closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. A minute later, her eyes opened and she looked to Eeth.

"It's a stampede. Something is scaring them towards the town and we don't have much time."

There was nothing for it.

"Granzien, take Sato and make sure as many people as possible get out of the way," Eeth said curtly. "Padawan, the two of us will try and stop them."


	5. Chapter 5

Eeth gazed for a moment towards the direction from which the stampede was approaching town. Then he pointed downwards to the edge of the plaza, behind the cordons that sealed the palace gates against the public. A group of security people with speeders were stationed there.

"We will get rid of our skirts, jump and take a speeder," he said. "I will Force-cushion your fall."

"We're coming, too," said Granzien decisively. "We can do the explaining while you rush off, and get them to help with the evacuation. Sato, you can do the jump on your own, can't you?"

"Of course," Sato replied indignantly.

Raven, however, could not. She was busy pulling at her obi, though, and so had other things on her mind right now. "Come! Off!" She was losing her temper with the thing.

Eeth gave the piece one decisive tug in the right place and it came free, as did his own. Sato and Granzien had already vaulted across the railing and were making to jump.

"Come on," Eeth said to Raven. "As soon as they have landed, you jump. I will go last. We have no time to lose."

Raven had never been so grateful for Eeth's ability to be in the right place, at the right time, as she was right then. The meters of skirt were kicked aside, and when Eeth gave her the go-ahead, Raven hurtled herself off the edge without hesitation. One of the few traits that made Raven stand out was her fearlessness. Of course, the padawan did her best to cushion her own fall. At eleven she had the basics of this down. From this height, though, she would need some help, which Eeth readily provided.

Without the skirts, Raven sailed to the ground without fabric flapping around her face and hampering her view. She was also able to move a lot faster. Brushing herself off, she shielded her eyes from the sun and watched as Eeth leapt from the ledge. They jumped into a speeder that Granzien had already procured and the two of them took off towards the disturbance while Granzien and Sato hurried to assist the security staff in evacuating the streets. Using Force compulsions might be of help. Their mourning garments were a lot more practical than Eeth's and Raven's ceremonial robes had been. Thankfully, those required wearing a tunic and some kind of skirt as underwear which meant that Eeth and Raven were not running around in drawers. Not that Eeth would have minded; he had an uncanny ability to wear almost everything with dignity and was supremely unconcerned about his looks when he had more pressing duties to carry out.

"Any idea what these animals are and what has them so upset?" Eeth inquired as he sped down the street, above the crowd's heads.

"I'm not sure, but I think it's people causing the stampede." She looked over at Eeth. "Their confusion is outweighing any real fear for their lives. If we could control the lead animal, we could control the entire herd; they share a collective bond. Otherwise, we could go for what's chasing them and stop it at that end?"

"Much as I would like to find the people who caused this and deal with them," Eeth said, "I am afraid that would not stop the stampede fast enough. Once a herd's flight instinct is aroused, they will keep on running for quite a while. So, we will have to go for the other option and find the lead animal."

As they approached the cloud of dust, grass and leaves that engulfed the herd, it did not take Eeth long to realise that the situation was even more dramatic than they had thought. The herd consisted of blurrgs, which were extremely strong and entirely capable of trampling people to death when in a state of panic. There was a huge number of them, at least a hundred, and they were only a minute or two from overrunning the first group of houses at the outskirts of the city. The low-roofed houses were built of wood and offered little resistance to the force of the herd. Most inhabitants did not even seem to have taken notice of the danger they were in. Eeth knew that they had to do something to stop the stampede, fast.

He pointed towards two especially large blurrgs that were at the head of the herd, their mouths foaming and their eyes bloodshot.

"I know it seems difficult," he shouted, having difficulties to make himself heard above the ruckus, "but try tuning in to the mind of the dark one and calming him down. If you can, convince him to follow our speeder. I will try tackling the lighter one on his side."

While he was speaking, he steered the speeder towards the lead animals, staying just out of their range, but close enough to keep them in sight.

Raven had a hand up to shield her eyes, because the dust was unrelenting! She looked left, meeting Eeth's gaze, and her insecurities about being good enough to be his padawan surfaced. This was no time for stage fright, yet the padawan found herself silently replaying Rayan's words. Was she going to be good enough? What if she failed? Would a tonne of people die because she freaked out?

"Padawan, focus," Eeth said firmly, sending her a brief surge of calming energy through their bond, and causing Raven to straighten up. "Just give it a try. If it does not work, we will still have other options. Go on, try and link with it."

He had turned the speeder around by now; they were right above the lead animals and Eeth kept them at the same speed.

Okay, so focus was not her strong suit, and this was the very first time that she was attempting anything like this on a real mission. Raven closed her eyes, gripped the dashboard on their speeder and tried to clear her mind enough to focus. It was hard going. Linking with the animal was not easy as its mind was frantic. If she could only touch it! "I need to touch it," Raven shouted over the roar of pounding hooves and snorting.

Eeth had tried as well and had no success either, not that that was much of a surprise; he had never been good at linking with animals.

"Alright!" he shouted back. He slammed his hand on the speeder's emergency-land button and opened the side door. "Jump!" he yelled. Raven was fearless and had good instincts; he assumed she would manage. And he would follow.

The moment Raven heard the order to jump, she was out the speeder in a flash. She landed with a thump and winced. These things were harder than she had anticipated; her crotch was going to pay for that one for the next few hours, not the she was thinking about that right now. Right now the padawan had more pressing issues. Barely acknowledging the fact that Eeth had landed behind her and gripped her around the waist, she lowered her head as close to the blurrg as was practical, considering she was literally hanging on for grim death here, and forced herself to focus.

This time it was more successful, and the animal began to slow from an outright gallop to more of a canter. The rest of the herd followed suit, much to both Jedis' relief. Raven couldn't lift her concentration to ask for instructions, so she simply focussed on making the beast stop. Eeth did not distract her; he merely made sure she did not fall off the blurrg's back while the herd slowed down and slowly started changing direction, veering towards the jungle. They had narrowly avoided the first cluster of houses.

Some speeders were approaching at the horizon. Eeth assumed the herd must come from somewhere and its owners were probably looking for it. He pondered whether to ask them for a ride but there was a risk that they would be taken for the persons who had actually caused this whole thing; or else, the persons who had caused it might be the ones flying the speeders.

"Padawan, let us get off," he said. "The immediate danger has been averted. There are people following the herd and they will catch up with it soon. There is no way for us to know if they are the owners of the herd or the people who caused the stampede or both. We had better hide and watch." And while they did so, he would send a message to Granzien and ask him to procure a speeder for them.

Raven jumped from her mount when Eeth did, following his lead. She was feeling pretty proud of herself right now, but didn't let it show. "How are we going to know who started it if we can only observe and not question them?" she asked while brushing fur off her undergarments. They both smelled like a pile of bantha shit now.

"I did not say that," Eeth replied as he made his way into the undergrowth where trees and bushes were hiding them from sight. "We will watch until we have learned more. Sometimes people who have things to hide will give away more when they do not know they are being watched. Besides, we have no mandate to question anyone. We are not the police. Now hush."

Raven frowned at him, her arms folded, but did as told; she would pick her battles.

Eeth ducked behind a couple of bushes, beckoning for Raven to follow suit, as the speeders approached. It became clear fairly soon that they were manned with farm hands who had no clue what had started the stampede; their sole job was to capture the animals and bring them back to where they were supposed to be. Eeth did not think there was any need to complicate matters by appearing from behind the bushes clad in what, to Fenestrian eyes, was underwear. He waited until the farm hands and the herd were moving away and then wrote his message to Granzien.

When their entourage left, Raven stood from behind the bushes, brushing sticks and the like from her clothes in brisk movements. She was still pretty proud of herself for stopping the herd, although Eeth had not seemed to notice this. Wordlessly, she leant against a tree stump to wait and picked up a handful of rocks. "Where will we begin our investigations, and what will we be asking who?" Raven asked, tossing one of her rocks at a divot in the ground. "SCORE!"

"We might not be in a position to investigate much at all," Eeth replied drily. "Our continued presence at the celebrations will be expected, unfortunately. Maybe Granzien and Sato can do more."

"They won't like being pulled away from their plants," Raven observed, but what she really wanted to say was 'STUFF the celebrations and let's do it ourselves!'

Eeth knew this but he also knew that Granzien would do his duty whether he liked it or not.

He looked after the huge cloud of dust and dirt surrounding the herd. Having averted them was quite a feat; Raven had shown much promise, he thought.

"Well done, padawan," he said a tad stiffly.

Raven looked up at him, smiled, and tossed another rock. Eeth didn't give out praise all the time, so when he did, it meant a lot to the padawan. Still, she did try not to act like a five-year-old in a cookie store, and was somewhat successful at that.

Eeth rose and looked out for the speeder. It was not long; Granzien simply had to hone in on the signal from Eeth's comlink.

"Hi there," he said, landing the speeder and beckoning for the two to get in. "I'd say we go back to our quarters and let you get dressed properly before anything else. However did you manage to avert the wholesale mayhem that we seemed to be in for?"

"Mostly, Raven did," Eeth said.

Granzien raised his eyebrows. "That's impressive. Great job. How did you do that, Raven?"

"She stunk them into submission," Sato interjected, having noticed Raven looking a little too full of herself.

It was true, Raven's head was inflating a little at the praise. Still, she didn't appreciate Sato stealing her thunder. "Come here and give me a hug." Raven jumped in the back with Sato and reached over, grabbing the older padawan around the waist and pulling her close.

"Ewww! Off, off!" Sato tried shooing her to no avail.

"Aw, now you're just hurting my feelings," said Raven through a grin, but relented before anyone could tell her off. "I managed to link with the herd leader," Raven replied to Granzien. She continued telling the story of what she and Eeth had gone through since parting ways with Granzien and Sato at the beginning, until they reached the guest quarters.

Neither Granzien nor Eeth were all too happy with Sato's continued efforts at antagonising Raven. They exchanged a look but, since Raven had managed to fend off Sato for now, they did not comment. Granzien knew he would have to have a talk with Sato anyway. Tonight.

"Padawan, we will take a shower and get changed into Jedi robes," Eeth said. "There is no alternative, and besides, I think this will be acceptable for the reception since the actual coronation is already over. There should be some lunch left. Our inquiries will have to wait until after that, unless the new king asks us to investigate. I do not think he will, though. That would be politically unwise."

Despite knowing it would be boring, part of Raven was still excited over going to the reception. It was all too new and interesting to be bothersome for now. Thus, she ran off to her bedroom to do as bade.

Meanwhile, Sato just shook her head; that kid was crazy, she had to be.

"Leave her alone, Sato," Granzien said quietly as Raven left. "You're antagonising her at every opportunity. Stop it. You're in enough trouble as it is."

"I didn't say a word," Sato defended herself, not bothering to meet Granzien's eye. She wasn't happy with him either, even if she had no reason for complaint.

Twenty minutes later Raven emerged, fully dressed, hair done and smelling a lot better. She sat on a divan and pulled on her boots. Her blonde hair was still a little damp, but it was styled into a tiny bun, most of which was sticking out as it was not quite long enough for that yet. She looked over at Granzien. "They have dancing tonight, did you know?" Raven had loved dancing in creche. Whether or not dancing on Fenesteer was as fun? Well, that was yet to be determined.

"I know," said Granzien. "I think I'll pass. But it depends on what Eeth says. If our attendance helps in any way, we'll come, of course."

"We can decide on that later," said Eeth. "I am not sure yet whether we will be expected or even allowed to investigate the cause of the stampede. I will try to find out more during the reception. Thank you for offering. Come on, let us leave."

And so, all four of them ended up at the reception that followed the coronation, much to Sato's displeasure. Well, at least it put some more time between her and having to talk to Granzien about making them late.

Raven looked interested, as she did over just about everything they attended. She stuck by Eeth's side, bowed when bade and basically followed along quite well. It was easy when all you had to do was copy someone else.

Eeth took care to procure them some food. They had missed out on the buffet but a protocol droid was happy to bring them plates of exquisite snacks, one of them vegetarian. They had barely started eating when the new king came up to meet them, a host of dignitaries in tow.

"Master Koth," he said grandly, delivering a complicated bow. "Jedi. I owe you my gratitude. I was informed that a herd of blurrgs had ACCIDENTALLY trampled a fence and escaped. They might have caused mayhem in town, had you not averted them. I am deeply thankful. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Please talk to Anat af Manauam about it."

From the look on Falp's face and his inflection, it was fairly clear that he was entirely aware that none of this had happened accidentally. But apparently, it was important to pretend, for political reasons. Eeth assumed that Anat would be more open, at least if they managed to catch him in private.

"We will," he said, returning the bow. Granzien followed suit.

There wasn't a lot Sato or Raven could add to the conversation; Raven was still considered a child and Sato, well, she was not really here in a diplomatic function. Raven smiled, though, and made sure to make all the right noises, as did Sato.

The food was nice. "Thanks for getting me something vegetarian," she told Eeth when the diplomats left. For all his gruff exterior, he could be rather thoughtful when duty afforded it.

"You are welcome," said Eeth who believed there was nothing to be gained from going hungry if it could be avoided. He steered the group of Jedi through the crowds slowly, looking out for Anat af Manauam. If the king wanted them to meet the man, there must be a reason. They finally spotted him on the balcony where he was beleaguered by at least a dozen off-planet diplomats. Upon noticing the Jedi, he managed to extricate himself from them and made their way towards the small group, beaming.

"Eeth!" he exclaimed genially. "How can I thank you? As I hear, there were at least a hundred blurrg heading for the city! I have no idea how the farm folk of Hauenam could have been so negligent."

That was an obvious clue that Eeth noted for later consideration. For now, he said politely: "It is mostly my apprentice you have to thank, Prime Minister. She has a particular gift for working with animals that came in very useful today."

"Thank you, thank you," said Anat, turning his beaming smile on Raven, who blushed pink in response to all the attention. "What would you say about a trip to explore the local wildlife, once the celebrations are over? The duchy of Hetensam, maybe? I will provide you with a local guide and everything you need, of course."

"Thank you, that will be much appreciated," Eeth replied politely, certain that this was another clue.

Raven's face said it all; she wanted that trip!

It was all Sato could do not to roll her eyes. Sure, Raven had stopped a bunch of banthas or something, but they had found a Markumi orchid, for the Force's sake! It was possibly the greatest botanical discovery in twenty years, and here they were fluffing around at some diplomatic function, talking. Well, there wasn't a great deal she could do about it. Thus, Sato stood quietly, her expression impassive.

Sato was lucky that neither Eeth nor Granzien shared a bond with her. They could not really pick up on her emotions unless they meditated together. They had not failed to notice Sato's attitude towards their youngest team member, however; Granzien, in particular, was quite sensitive to it and it was one of the many things he was going to try and discourage tonight, much as he despised such talks.

For now, they made their way around the reception, offering congratulations to new government members and exchanging pleasantries with aristocrats and other diplomats. This kept them busy well into the afternoon until the new king finally took his leave and the gathering began to disperse. Most everyone wanted to rest a little and get cleaned up and dressed for the banquet and dance that were going to take place tonight.

"Let us return to our quarters," Eeth said to Granzien, and the man nodded. "Will our presence be required at the dance?" he inquired, not quite managing to hide his distaste at the notion.

"No, I do not think so," said Eeth. "It will be sufficient if Raven and I go."

Granzien was not the only one relieved over being freed from their diplomatic shackles. Sato, too, was glad for it. Having to talk to her mentor over causing them to be late, however, she could decidedly do without. Although Sato was not one to try to avoid such things, she did find her mind wandering to the possibility that she and Granzien might just get back out to the Markumi orchid tonight. Hardly anything was known about this species. What did they do at night? Did the flower die after a short period of time like in many other orchid species? It was all unknown! Besides, even if he did decide to call her to task, this was Granzien, and unlike Eeth, who had a reputation for being strict, Granzien was at the opposite end of the scale. How bad could it be?

That remained to be seen. Before Granzien dealt with the matter, Eeth wanted to talk to Sato.

"Padawan Sato," he said as soon as they had stepped inside their quarters. "Wait for me in the dining room. I will be with you in a moment."

Sato inclined her head and sighed. She knew that he was probably going to tear her a new one over holding them up. It was his job as their mission leader, and the senior padawan didn't think Eeth the sort to skimp on his duties … as much as she would have appreciated it this time.

Raven followed Eeth, looking a touch pensive. "Can't you cut her some slack? They did make a huge discovery, after all," she attempted. Sato had not particularly won Raven's favour, yet Raven felt she owed it to a fellow padawan about to face off against her master to give it a try at the very least.

"That has got nothing to do with it," Eeth said sternly. "Sato has been arrogant and dismissive of her diplomatic duties from the outset. And she is more than old and experienced enough to know better. We have no use for such behaviour, least of all on a mission that is turning out more critical than I would have thought. Go, have a swim and leave it to me to decide how to deal with members of our mission team."

"Yahoo!" Okay, okay, so it was a little cowardly of her, but, well, Force, Sato had not exactly endeared herself to the junior apprentice. No, she was on her own from here, and Raven was going swimming!

The last thing Sato expected was for Raven to attempt sticking up for her. She had assumed that any padawan whom the Force lead to a master of Eeth's calibre had to have issues. So far, that assumption seemed to be erroneous, as Raven had not really put a toe out of line and appeared to have no major problems. Well, she was fidgety and did not stay still unless forced, but that was hardly a serious problem.

Eeth took a moment to get cleaned up in the refresher and gather his thoughts. Then he emerged into the dining room. Granzien had gone to have a swim as well; he had no desire to witness this.

Eeth entered the dining room, stood in front of Sato and folded his arms across his chest.

"Padawan Sato, you managed to make half our mission team almost miss the coronation ceremony where seats had been reserved for you," he said brusquely. "Trying to find a solution that would enable you to attend caused me considerable extra work. All that for something that might have been important but hardly urgent, and without thinking to consult your mentor. Explain yourself."

Sato liked to think of herself as a padawan who was not easily intimidated. However, when Eeth asked for an explanation, she found herself feeling uncharacteristically nervous, not knowing what to do with her hands, and reluctant to make eye contact. That wouldn't do, and so she forced herself to man up. "I thought that making what is easily the greatest botanical discovery in the last twenty years superseded your mandate."

Sato was interrupted by the sound of an impossibly high-pitched squeal, followed by a Raven-sized splash.

Eeth did not let that deter himself.

"You thought," he repeated, his voice heavy with disapproval. "And did you also think that this was your decision to make?"

"No, it wasn't, but I made it anyway." Sato wouldn't lie, but neither was she eager to confess that she had done it in the hopes that she might just get herself and Granzien out of the coronation.

"You are old and experienced enough to know better," Eeth said. "Why did you do it anyway?"

Sato met his eye, leveling him with a resolute expression. "Because I didn't want to go to the coronation, and thought this was a worthy excuse."

"There is no such thing as a worthy excuse when it comes to fulfilling your duty," Eeth snapped. "Even if there were, it would have been up to Master Granzien to decide. And I am fairly certain that both your master and the Council will agree when they are informed of this."

Sato's calm facade cracked a little around the edges at hearing that Eeth planned on adding this to their mission file. The Council she wasn't too concerned about. After all, she had never done anything to piss them off before and didn't really know what to expect. But her master? He was going to be seriously displeased, and that was not going to end well for her. She swallowed. "Can't you leave my master out of this? It's not like I'm getting out of this without consequence." Sato was, of course, referring to the fact that Granzien was bent on dragging her ass over the coals for this, even if she did not believe that said 'ass dragging' would be all that bad.

"No, I cannot," said Eeth flatly. "I believe that you have a serious attitude problem and your master needs to be aware of where this has led you. It will be up to him to decide whether you need a more long-term attitude adjustment than Master Granzien will be able to provide and he cannot do that if I withhold relevant information. This was no small misstep, Padawan Sato. Do something like this again and you will almost certainly be put on probation, with your mission eligibility suspended."

Probation? Probation! Sato stiffened slightly at the thought. Probation was for other padawans, padawans who were out of control and needed crazy-strict masters like Eeth and perhaps Rool. Her breathing quickened but she was fast to control it. Fine, she would just have to deal with it. She balled her fists and stared at the couch, waiting for Eeth to get this over with; she was done being told off.

Eeth, however, thought that there was still something important lacking to this talk, which was an apology. He raised his eyebrows and looked down at Sato, arms still folded across his chest.

"Is there nothing more you have to say about your behaviour?" he inquired.

Geez, Sato was starting to sympathise with Raven, if only just a little. "I apologise for creating work, for not clearing it with Granzien and for doing it all on purpose." It had never been difficult for Sato to confess to misdeeds, or to accept consequences for that matter, but lately she was finding this harder. She looked at Eeth's hands because that seemed to make it all a bit easier.

"Alright," said Eeth curtly. "I will leave it to Master Granzien to discuss consequences with you. That will be all."

He badly needed to take a swim himself. Despite having taken a shower after the stampede, he still felt as if he smelt of blurrg.

Sato strode for her bedroom; she wasn't going to swim with them!

… Another impossibly high-pitched squeal, followed by the sound of Granzien's laughter, had her stop and turn around, though. Who were they to make her miss out? Even if she was sulking over Eeth and Granzien for telling her off, and at Raven for being, well, being Raven!

Sato changed into her swimsuit and five minutes later, they were all in the pool.

Raven wasted no time in dunking Sato, dragging her into the fun. Granzien was resting against a corner, but each time Raven swam up to him, he'd launch her into the air. It was the best fun Raven had had in forever, and it worked well to quash the tension. Even Eeth joined in to a degree, allowing Raven to take a ride on his back and catching her once when Granzien threw her. Mostly, he indulgently watched the others' antics. Finally, though, it was time for Eeth and Raven to get dressed and leave for the dance.

"Let's get dressed, too," Granzien told Sato. "We still need to talk."

Again, Sato let out a sigh and obeyed.

Meanwhile, Raven didn't argue for more time, which was probably a first. She was feeling tired and had a bit of a headache from all the Force work, not that she would admit as much.

Eeth gave her a scrutinising look as they went inside. She was paler than usual and a lot less exuberant. He realized that she had had very little sleep and a long and busy day that had involved more Force work than either of them had foreseen.

"Are you not feeling well?" he asked her quietly. "There is no way I can excuse us from the dance but I might be able to help you feel a little less exhausted."

Although it pained her to admit weakness – she was a lot like Eeth as a padawan in that respect –, Raven couldn't deny that she was feeling the effects of their day. She looked up at him, briefly considered lying to him, dismissed it as suicidal and frowned. "I'm tired, and … I might have a headache," she admitted.

"That is only natural," said Eeth. "You lack sleep, you did much more Force work than usual, and you have not mastered the skill of drawing on the Force to deal with such things. I can help you. Get dressed and come to my room."

Raven hated to feel like she was weaker, but she really couldn't match the others at only eleven, not that she saw it that way. "Yes, master," came the predictable response, and Raven went about doing as told. Twenty or so minutes later, she was dressed in formal robes and ready for tonight's dance. Her hair was still a little damp but it had been styled neatly and was no longer green. Raven entered Eeth's bedroom to find him seated at the rather spacious desk, tapping away at his datapad.

Eeth laid the datapad down and turned around.

"Lie down on my bed and relax," he said. "I will use the Force to deal with the headache and ease your fatigue a little, and then I will give you a hypospray on top of that, to be on the safe side. We have no way of knowing how long tonight's event will take. It would look bad if we left early."

Raven did as bade, lying down and resting her head in her arms. It wasn't the first time Eeth had performed Force-aided healing or given her a hypo, but it was the first time that he had helped her with fatigue. She wondered how he was going to do it but knew that he needed to concentrate for now.

Eeth first dealt with the pain, as he usually did. Then he helped Raven draw on her energy reserves to stave off the fatigue. It was not a long-term solution for missing out on sleep, but for the short term, it was a useful technique. Raven was nowhere close to the level of mental discipline she would have needed to do it herself, though, which was one of many reasons for which truly demanding missions were a no-go for now.

"Alright," Eeth finally said, having applied the hypospray. "I will brush my hair, and then we need to get going."

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the shuttle that was once again taking them to the palace.

Granzien lost no time in calling Sato to the dining room. He had rather not postpone this talk any longer.

Sato, however, could have happily postponed it. Indefinitely. It was bad enough getting told off by her typically easy-going mentor, but if he was planning on using physical punishment, which she suspected he was, that was something she did not want to endure from anyone. Not even by Granzien's (hopefully lenient and reluctant) hand.

As a matter of fact, Sato's hopes were futile. Granzien might normally be easy-going but if he absolutely had to undertake the unpleasant business of dealing out punishment, he wanted it to have an effect. And he was well able to make sure that it did.

He sat on the edge of the dining table, resting one foot on a chair, and fixed Sato with a half-weary, half-stern look.

"Tell me why we're having this talk," he said.

Sato sat on a divan, happy to keep her distance. "Because I made decisions that weren't up to me to make, so we might miss the coronation, which caused extra work for Eeth," she replied evenly. She did not like the way this was going. It had been quite some time since anyone other than her own master had told her off, and it was not sitting well with her.

"And what kind of an attitude does that demonstrate?" inquired Granzien because this was a point that he really wanted to drive home.

"An impatient one, I guess," said Sato, and shot him an exasperated expression. "Eeth and Raven ought to be enough to handle the diplomacy; it's a waste of our time, even you think so."

"No, I don't," said Granzien firmly. "I do think that I'd rather have been doing something else. That's not the same as thinking that attending the coronation is a waste of our time. There was a reason we had to go, and it was even explained to you. Even if it hadn't been explained to you, it still wouldn't have been up to you to dismiss your orders. Try finding a better adjective for describing your attitude. 'Impatient' doesn't cut it."

"Maybe a bit arrogant, then." Sato didn't really think she was arrogant, but her master had been saying otherwise lately. Granzien no doubt wanted to hear it, too. Typically, she had no problems admitting to failures, but having this talk with Granzien was more challenging than she had anticipated.

"Maybe more than just 'a bit' arrogant," Granzien said, frowning. "And speaking of arrogant: When you were eleven years old, would you have liked it if an adolescent fellow team member had looked down on you and provoked you at every turn?"

"No. Are you implying that I'm doing that?" Sato was surprised. She didn't think she was antagonising Raven at all – well, not really. The occasional jibe here and there was how she treated everyone.

"Yes, I am," said Granzien. "And I've told you before to stop it, so this should be nothing new to you."

Sato frowned. "I was just messing with her. It wasn't serious. Geez. Why is everyone on my case about every little thing lately?" The question had been rhetorical, but Sato did not add to it.

"Maybe because some of those things aren't so little, or maybe you keep adding them up," Granzien said, his frown deepening.

Maybe they were, but Sato did not think so. To her, everyone was being overly sensitive.

And that was exactly why Granzien was not happy with Sato's attitude, which showed. "Raven is five years younger than you," he said. "With such an age difference, the dividing line between messing with her and bullying her is pretty thin. More importantly, you might really want to start making an effort to take Eeth and myself more seriously when we tell you to do or not to do something. Whether you see the point or not is really not relevant. If you think you know better, you'll just have to live with the consequences."

She wasn't a bully, that was just crazy! Still, the padawan could tell from the expression on her typically placid mentor's face, that it would be unwise to state such thoughts.

Granzien inclined his head, scrutinising Sato for a moment and gauging his options. Finally, he concluded that she really needed to understand that he meant business. Maybe that way she would think to ask the next time temptation arose…


	6. Chapter 6

Eeth and Raven were seated in the back of a rather elaborately decorated, chauffeur-driven speeder, about to arrive at the royal palace where they would be attending a dance that could go on until all hours in the morning. Given that Raven had already stayed up until midnight the evening before for the reception, and thanks to the stampede of blurrgs that had had her drawing heavily on the Force, Eeth had needed to help her deal with her growing fatigue before leaving their quarters. So far, it was working well enough.

While Raven was arriving at the dance, Sato had problems of her own. Having endured an unexpectedly stern interrogation from Master Granzien, she found herself trapped in an increasingly awkward silence as her mentor contemplated her fate. She'd discovered a rare markumi orchid and used the find as an excuse to purposefully make them late to this morning's coronation ceremony. To say that this had gone over badly was a gross understatement. Eeth had torn her a new one over it, and now she was having to deal with her mentor.

"If you're going to do it, just do it," she said. "Although I feel I have to remind you that Eeth is adding this to our mission report, so I'm going to go through enough already," she added after quite a bit of deliberation. After all, she was pretty sure that she wasn't going to want whatever he was taking his time thinking about.

"Oh, I will," said Granzien grimly. "When I'm ready. Not when you tell me to." Sato needed to learn that there were things she had no say in, no matter how grown-up she might feel. And that was why he continued his silence for a moment longer, despite the fact that he had actually been about to break it when Sato had uttered her complaint.

Sato frowned at him; was there no end to the crap people would pick on her for lately? The padawan huffed and slumped back into the divan. "May I be excused, then? I have classwork I could get on with." Sato didn't mind her classes; in this case they were a welcome diversion that she hoped vehemently he would allow.

Granzien couldn't believe her cheek. He really couldn't allow it to go on unchecked. "No," he snapped, and that was highly uncharacteristic. He wasn't the type to snap. Had Eeth rubbed off on him? If he had, Granzien was currently too annoyed to care. "What you can do," he informed Sato, "is sit there, keep your mouth shut and work on your attitude until I tell you otherwise."

Although she would never admit to this, Sato had a lump of sorrow developing in her throat, and was feeling quite frustrated. Sure, she was used to being controlled, that was part and parcel of her status. Still, this was Granzien, and so far, he had been nothing but comradely. Well, apparently that changed if you annoyed him sufficiently. Sato knew when she was beat, and with a resigned expression, she closed her eyes and began releasing her emotions into the Force; it would not do to air those, after all.

Now that was an excellent idea, in Granzien's opinion, and he had no intention of interfering with it. He sat on the edge of the table and let Sato meditate for about five minutes. Then he said: "Alright, that's enough for now." When Sato opened her eyes, he rose and motioned towards the dining table. "Pull down your pants and bend over," he ordered.

Sato stood and moved to the table without complaint, but only due to the fact that she had just spent the last five minutes releasing her emotions into the Force. "You're seriously going to do this?" she asked while pulling off her belt; it was a last-ditch effort at finding the comradely side of her mentor. Right now she missed that side of him and wanted it back.

She was not going to get it back before Granzien had finished this, though. He was neither stupid nor did he want to prolong this any more than necessary.

"You deserve it and you know it," said Granzien. "So, yes, I'm going to do it. I'd be a poor mentor if I didn't."

He calmly opened the clasp of his belt and started taking off his saber and the considerable number of utilities he carried around. After all, unusual and interesting plants could be found almost everywhere and he needed the proper equipment to examine and collect them!

"I'd not mind a poor mentor, then," she replied while tossing her belt and saber onto the table. She shoved the bottom half of her clothing to her knees and put her hands on the table. At sixteen years old, Sato knew how this went, as much as she wished she didn't.

"If I allowed you to carry on like you have done so far, I'd seriously jeopardize your career perspectives," Granzien replied calmly. "I doubt that you'd thank me for it in the long run. This is for your disobedience, for neglecting your duties, for making decisions without my consent, and for all the trouble you caused us by it. It's also for your arrogant attitude which I expect you to lose immediately unless you want a repeat of this conversation."

Sato remained silent. There was nothing she could say that wouldn't further condemn her at this point.

Granzien doubled the belt over in his hand, raised it and brought it down onto her bottom with considerable force.

Had this been her master, or Eeth, or just about any Jedi other than Granzien, Sato might have anticipated a blazing welt like that. As it was, however, a hiss of both surprise and pain escaped her lips. That had gotten her attention. She looked back over her shoulder and met his eye, her expression a mixture of shock and surprise: was he serious?

Granzien calmly returned the look, his resolve clear from his expression. He had raised a padawan before and he knew how to do this. It was true that he did not resort to corporal punishment often, certainly by far not as frequently as Eeth. And his padawan had, for the most part, well responded to his preference for talking about their behaviour, handing out warnings and, if necessary, denying him privileges. However, when Afzal had crossed certain lines, he had known to expect a physical punishment, and one that left an impression. Today was no different. Granzien dealt out slow, steady strokes, and the force behind them did not lessen one bit.

Sato gripped the table edge a little harder with each stroke, until he dealt out the eighth and her resolve to take this stoically faltered. She let out a gasp, her knuckles white from the death-grip she had on the table's edge. She maintained her focus, though, as Sato was sixteen and well able to take a belting with dignity. Well, as much dignity as could be expected.

Allowing Sato to preserve her dignity was not exactly Granzien's top priority right now, though. He would much prefer to make sure she learned a lesson here. And that was why he continued, well past the dozen, not giving the impression that he was going to let up on her any time soon.

By the time Granzien dealt out the sixteenth lick, Sato was in serious pain. She was having a hard time keeping her hands on the table and was unable to stop herself from whimpering at each stroke. She had managed thus far not to break position, but not without twisting and curling her back. Her expression was, of course, one of serious pain; by now Granzien had dealt out what she would have expected from her own master had she pulled such a stunt. Sure, Terrin was faster to dish out said consequences, but they were definitely on a par with what Granzien had meted out.

Granzien's own padawan would probably have been crying at this point, but then, Afzal had never been one to hold back tears. Sato was obviously different. Granzien did not doubt that she was feeling this, and he was not really comfortable with dealing out more than her age in strokes, at least not when the strokes were this hard. Thus, he stopped the belting at this point and said: "You may get up."

It took her a moment to register those words. Sato was in a world of hurt right now, and it was taking all of her considerable willpower to keep from crying. Sato had never been the sort to openly express such emotions, not because she believed them weak, but because it was simply not in her nature. That wasn't to say that she didn't feel them. She most definitely did, and the expression on her face as she turned to face Granzien would have said as much. Her eyes were glassy, her face pink and her hands were curling and uncurling into fists by her sides. She adjusted her clothing and straightened with a visible effort but remained silent.

Granzien's face softened. He was a very compassionate person and it had not been easy for him to do this.

"I would like you to meditate now," he said softly, resting a hand on Sato's shoulder briefly. "Try to think about why that just happened and what you need to change so it won't happen again."

Meditation after punishment was mostly standard, and Sato had expected to receive this order. That didn't mean to say that she found it at all easy to achieve; she did not. For most padawans, meditating while in considerable pain, and restricted from relieving said pain, was challenging. Still, Sato chose to lie on a divan in their common room area and did her best to obey. She was not the sort to crave exile after punishment. In fact, she wanted Granzien's Force presence nearby, because despite the pain he had just caused her, his presence was soothing.

Granzien did not intend to leave Sato to her own devices. He could use some meditation himself; he usually did, after having meted out punishment. Thus, he sat cross-legged on the thick carpet and entered a trance. Sato would be allowed to stop when he was done dealing with his own emotions.

This took about an hour, which was longer than Sato was used to, but then again, Granzien was not exactly the typical master. She looked up at him as he roused her, and although the expression on her face was no longer one of extreme discomfort, nor did she look comfortable.

"Any insights?" Granzien asked gently. He really hoped she had had some because he genuinely wanted to help her improve.

Why the adults in her life felt the need to ask this was beyond her. However, given that Sato had just spent an hour meditating on what she had done and the consequences of said actions, she at least had an answer for him. "It's my duty to obey, and I didn't do that because…" She paused, looking shamefaced. "… I wanted to get out of the coronation. It was arrogant to think that decision was up to me, and I caused trouble for Eeth and our mission because of it. I'm sorry." It had been sincere, too; Sato did actually regret having done that now, even if at the time it had felt like a stroke of genius.

"Apology accepted," said Granzien kindly. He had not failed to notice that Sato had not addressed her attitude towards Raven. Since that had not been the reason for her punishment, he let that matter rest for now and hoped she would be sensible enough to improve in that respect.

"Get ready for bed now," he told Sato. "We need to make it an early bedtime because we'll want to find the markumi orchid and study it tomorrow. I saved the exact coordinates to my comlink. I'll procure a lighter speeder, which might save us the climb."

Sato brightened at the mention of her find. The markumi orchid was indeed the botanical discovery of the decade, and she had made it. Of course, given that she was only sixteen years old, the concept of enhancing her own longevity had not really occurred to her. That didn't mean that the significance of such a find was lost on her. It most definitely was not. She stood, wincing slightly, and nodded. "Alright." After receiving a world-class smackdown from the man, Sato was still feeling rather subdued, even if she had understood and accepted it and forgiven him. Besides, her ass no longer had its own heartbeat, but it still hurt.

"Come see me before you turn in," said Granzien gently. "I'll give you some bacta."

* * *

In the meantime, Raven and Eeth were threading their way through the most crowded event so far. Apparently, half the city had been invited, or so it seemed. All the public areas in the palace were full with people, with most of them crowding the enormous dance hall. The dance itself had not started yet; for the moment, people were milling around serving themselves to snacks and drinks from trays that were carried around by droids while soft music was playing. The king was sitting on a gallery overlooking the hall among a small entourage, a benign smile on his face.

Raven followed Eeth closely, doing her best to copy him and blend in. It was easy enough when it came to the conversations as nobody really wanted to hear from her, and so she was able to simply observe. That was boring, though, really boring. Still, what options did she have here? None! Well, at least the dance would be getting started soon, that much Raven was looking forward to.

Before it came to that, though, Eeth was suddenly overcome by a sense of foreboding that he had learned long ago not to ignore. He instinctively looked up to where the king sat just in time to see several security people hurry up to him. They talked to him urgently and quietly. A moment later, security staff started running into the hall. One officer spotted Eeth and came up to him.

"There has been a bomb threat, and it seems to be real," he said. "The king will order the evacuation of the palace in a moment but there might not be enough time. The bomb is supposed to go off in twenty minutes and we have no idea where in the palace it's hidden. The king sent me to ask if you could help."

"I might be able to," said Eeth immediately as loudspeakers started to blare around them and people started to move, push and shove each other towards the exits. "Can you get my padawan to safety while I do?"

The officer nodded. Eeth turned towards Raven. "Padawan," he said in a tone of voice that conveyed how serious he was. "I will try to find the bomb. You follow the officer, get out of here as fast as possible and wait outside, wherever you are told to wait. You will not come after me unless I explicitly allow you to. Is that very clearly understood?"

"Yes, master, but, can't you let me help you? I can help," Raven replied. The look on her face conveyed exactly what she thought of being left with a babysitter; she wanted to go with her master!

"No, you cannot," snapped Eeth. They had no time for this. For the Force's sake, they did not even have time to call in Granzien; the bomb would just about go off by the time he arrived! "You would merely put yourself in danger for no good reason," Eeth continued in fast, clipped tones, "because you have nowhere near attained the level of Force awareness that would be needed for detecting a bomb. Go. Now. That is an order."

Far from placated, Raven turned on her heel and obeyed without further comment. And it was a good thing she did, as the officer assigned to her safety was about to grab her by the scruff of her neck and start dragging. He wanted out of here, now!

All around them, people were falling over each other trying to reach the exits. The exits were far away, though, and the maze of corridors and gardens in this sector of the palace was full of people. There might not be enough time to get them all out. Eeth needed to act immediately. He had no more time to lose.

"Come on, kid, let's get a move on. I got a job to do, you know," said the officer, who was looking around nervously.

"Keep your shirt on, I'm moving as fast as I can." Actually, that wasn't true, but he didn't know that. Raven was reluctant to leave her master, but he had given her a direct order, and disobeying that would certainly not be in her best interest. When they reached the front entrance, Raven was led to the officers' command center, located in the safe zone, and told to sit tight and keep out of trouble. The padawan took umbrage at the latter, yet said nothing. Apparently her babysitter had work to do. Well, so did she, if only Eeth would let her do it. Raven sighed, barely looking up as several guards entered and began fiddling around with buttons on the command console.

She sat there for what felt like forever, but in reality was probably only about five minutes. All the while call after call were pouring in. The officers were responding to each call as fast as they could, but there were just so many. She offered to help take the calls, but was ignored, which further annoyed her; Raven hated to feel like a spare part, but this was exactly what she was here. What a waste of a perfectly good Jedi! Well, she wasn't quite a Jedi yet, Raven knew that. Still, she had a lot of training and could be of some use.

The officer sitting nearest to Raven suddenly banged his palm against her forehead. "Shit," she cursed. "We forgot all about the king's zoo!" She entered a code into her comm and called a colleague who was still within the palace, evacuating people.

"Shantia, the king's Tarchalian gazelles are still in there!" she said urgently. "Can you get them out?"

"I'm sorry, but no," said Shantia. "There's no one left around the central garden. We'd have to send someone back in. We're all still busy getting people out, though, and besides, there's too little time left. It's not just a matter of opening the hatch; that person would have to get a dozen gazelles to follow them out in less than ten minutes. They'd stop at the first tree and start eating its leaves, and then what? Sorry, but I'm not risking anyone's life for that." With that, she ended the call.

"Alright then," muttered the officer, already moving to take the next call.

"Wait, wait, don't end the call!" But it was too late. "I can help with that," said Raven, and stood when nobody seemed to pay this any mind. "You can't just leave them there! What if the bomb goes off and they're all crushed?" Raven knew Eeth would let them free if he could, but she also knew that he already had his hands full.

And indeed, Eeth was currently in a deep meditative trance, following the faint trail of unease that he sensed through the Force. This was by no means an easy task because, for one thing, the trail was extremely faint, given that the bomb was an inanimate object, and for another thing, the palace was a maze. He could not simply follow his sense of direction and be done with. There were less than seven minutes left when he finally discovered the bomb behind a wall panel right next to the entrance of the throne room. He immediately started trying to find out if he could defuse it. He had some knowledge of this but he was by no means an expert. His sense of the Force helped, but it was probably not enough. If he had made no significant progress within four minutes, he decided, he would remove the bomb and drop it into the well in the central atrium. It would almost certainly cause damage that way, but significantly less damage than it would if left where it was.

Meanwhile, Raven had gotten tired of being ignored and left the command center. It hadn't been difficult to slip out unnoticed as each of the guards had their hands full dealing with the influx of calls. Well, saving the lives of the king's gazelles was something that she _could_ do, and the padawan was not about to allow them to die because her babysitters did not understand, or would not listen, when she tried to explain her skill set. She did, however, pause at the guard station before entering the palace and pulled out her comlink; getting clearance from Eeth was certainly wise. Before she could input his code, though, a guard stopped her. "This is a bomb threat. No comm devices allowed, you might set it off," he warned, folding his arms across his chest. It was his job to keep people from entering the palace.

"Alright," replied Raven and tucked her comlink back into her belt. This would complicate things. There was no time to deliberate, though, as she really didn't have time to waste. "I'm the padawan of Jedi Master Eeth Koth, and I need access to the palace," she stated in an authoritative tone.

The guard looked her up and down with a skeptical eye. She couldn't be older than nine, or possibly a very small ten. "Wait a moment," he told her and went into the tiny guard station to check his files for new orders that would validate her story.

Which was just enough time for Raven to slip past the gate. She took off running in the direction she sensed the gazelles. Even had the padawan not been able to sense them, she would not have needed directions. Eeth had forced her to study every available piece of information about, well, everything! So Raven knew that the king's zoo was in the center atrium.

The latches were easy enough to work, and they were all unhinged with a single wave of her hand. Well, unhinged was probably an understatement, she thought, as bits of bolts and hinges flew from their fastenings and scattered all over the floor. Raven stopped in her tracks as the memory of the last time she had done something like this flashed through her mind. She had freed an entire coop of battery hens during a field trip to the planet of Pellebet, and boy, had she paid for that. Funnily enough, Granzien had been involved with that also, as he had been teaching the zoology class hosting said field trip. This was different, though. Of course it was! This time, she was freeing the animals from an unplanned death and it was not against her specific orders. The logic was an unfortunate reality, but one she didn't have time to dwell on right now. Convincing the gazelles to follow her was proving difficult. Unlike the blurrgs, Tarchalian gazelles, or at least the prized male stallions that this collection consisted of, did not share a collective bond. They were mostly solitary, although they did coexist peacefully. It took her a solid five minutes to convince them that it was in their best interest to follow her. Now all that was left to do was to make the 250 meters to the palace exit, up and down several curving ramps, at least if one wanted to avoid the staircases. As Eeth had already noticed, this palace was a maze.

What Eeth was noticing right now was that his padawan was nowhere outside the palace. He had been forced to conclude that there was no way he could deactivate the bomb fast enough, so he had carefully dislodged it from its place behind the wall panel, expecting to be blown to smithereens any moment, and levitated it to the central atrium where he had dropped it into the well. Said well was not as deep as he would have liked; there would almost certainly be a massive tremor but with any luck, the palace would remain standing. He had then run towards the exit at Force-enhanced speed. All this had required his complete focus; only now, as he was standing outside the main gate and trying to locate Raven, did he realise that she was still inside, with only half a minute left until the bomb went off. It was maybe the third or fourth time in his life that he actually felt tempted to curse.

Of course, that would just have been a waste of time. Without losing a beat, he turned and ran back inside, at a speed that was well beyond anything that was advisable even for an extremely skilled and experienced Jedi. Within fifteen seconds, he had reached Raven. He flung her across his shoulder, turned and made his way back towards the exit at the same impossible speed.

"Waaai… Ooff!" Raven didn't know what hit her. One moment she was focussing on coaxing out her gazelles, the next she was staring at a blur of palace tiles! A split-second later the Force told her what her eyes were unable to pick-up; Eeth had hold of her and was running for the exit at an impossibly high speed.

The exit was just coming into sight when Eeth's sense of the Force warned him that the bomb was about to go off. He drew on the Force one last time, vaulting through the gate and taking a rolling fall, still clutching his padawan, as the palace started to shake and a few marble slabs came crashing down from the vaulted ceiling behind the gate. Eeth's vision started to fade. He had exhausted all the reserves he had, and then some, pulling this off.

Raven instinctively curled into a ball as Eeth rolled, allowing his larger body to shield her from getting mashed on the stones as they landed. Her head came up as soon as they had stopped skidding. There was dust, smoke and debris flying from sections in the middle of the palace, but mostly it was contained. Two or three gazelle were also fleeing, panicking and heading into the streets. Raven was taking all of this in fast. She looked down at Eeth: his eyes were closing and he looked pale. Immediately, the padawan scanned him through the Force and found a pulse. He was alive, but severely drained. "Master!" she spoke, worried and trying for a response. While she was doing this, she was also fumbling to pull off his comlink that was wedged under his hip (hers must have fallen off during the run out); they needed to contact Granzien. Now.

Several security people came running up to them from behind a wall where they had taken shelter.

"What happened?" their officer asked urgently, kneeling beside Eeth.

Eeth drew a shuddering breath. "Found … bomb," he murmured. "Could not … deactivate it. Th- threw it in well. Central atrium." He tried to sit up but only managed to flop onto his side which at least gave Raven better access to his comlink. He could not remember ever having been this severely drained, not even the one time he had carried an injured Lakhri out of a Hutt crime lord's lair. Well, he had not tried Force-enhanced running at that time, let alone at a speed that was beyond his tolerance level and across such a distance. Today, however, there simply had been no alternative.

Okay, so Raven had two priorities right now: making sure Eeth was alive, and getting Granzien here as soon as practical. She yanked her master's comlink from his belt, breaking the clip, and punched in Granzien's code. While she waited, she ordered a guard to give her his jacket, which she used to shield Eeth's head from the stones; they might look pretty but they were far from comfortable.

Eeth wanted to give instructions, he really did, but his brain would not function nor did he have enough energy to actually speak. He tried assessing the damage to the palace but the light was too bright for his eyes. He had to close them. With some degree of relief, and through a haze of pain, he heard Raven talk to Granzien who was at their guest quarters. The man would hopefully arrive shortly – and Eeth would never have thought that the day would come where he hoped for Granzien's arrival. For now, the security staff seemed to know what they were doing and, more importantly, there was not a single thing Eeth could do in his current state. Therefore, he closed his eyes and entered a healing trance. He would need more than a few minutes of that to make a recovery but it was a start.

Raven had several of the guards carry Eeth to the nearest designated safe area and lay him onto a stretcher. She knew he'd hate that if he were awake, but, well, he wasn't, and so he would just have to deal with her decision. Raven guarded his sleep while at the same time she provided what little information she had to pass on about the explosion.

Twelve minutes later, a speeder came skidding to a halt in the lane behind the sanitary tent and Granzien jumped out.

"Oh shit," he said upon seeing Eeth. The man was not only unconscious but his clothes were torn and he had bloody abrasions all over his left side. His shoulder looked as if it might be injured. "What happened?" he asked, dropping to his knees beside the stretcher and running a scanner across Eeth.

Raven gave as honest a recount as she could, but she was still in shock herself and not sure what had really happened. "There was a bomb threat. I went back in to free some gazelles." Raven looked at Eeth, worried. "We were running too fast, even too fast for Eeth, and then the bomb went off and he jumped. We cleared the exit, but, he shielded me with himself. That's why he's all ripped up." Raven had done what little Force-aided healing she was capable of, and called for what medical assistance was available. Eeth currently had someone placing large strips of tape across his legs to pull out the small stones that were embedded in the skin. Raven was glad that he was hairless, or this would have been more painful than it already looked. She too had the tiny, decorative stones in her side, but it was nothing compared to the mess Eeth was in.

Granzien frowned. There were big gaps in Raven's account but he decided that now was not the time to close them. He scrutinised the read-out on the scanner and then assessed Eeth's state through the Force.

"Eeth is in a healing trance," he said. "Which is the most sensible thing he could do. His energy reserves are dangerously low. I've never seen anyone exhaust himself like that. His injuries are painful and his shoulder might be fractured but it's nothing that a bucketload of bacta and a bone knitter won't fix. However, he won't be much use for quite a while. I'll call the Council immediately and call in a replacement team. And then I'll look after you. You're injured, too."

Raven waved off his closing comment; her injuries were nothing, comparatively speaking. Instead, the padawan remained focused on Eeth. There wasn't much she could do to help him, but they did share a training bond which was not to be dismissed; she could at least try to add to his strength through it.

Granzien noticed what she was doing and knew it was futile but his call was more urgent. He described the situation to the Temple secretary quickly and succinctly, adding his own assessment that the political situation was volatile and required Jedi assistance. Just as Granzien had expected, he was put through to the Council member on duty who asked him to take charge for the next two days until a replacement team would arrive. Eeth and Raven had better return to Coruscant as soon as Eeth was in any state to be transported. It was a good thing their spaceship was equipped with pilots. Granzien notified them to expect a premature departure, possibly by morning. Then he returned to Raven.

"There is nothing you can do to help him," he said gently, kneeling next to her and resting a hand on her shoulder. A paramedic was currently busy treating Eeth's wounds. At the same time, a doctor was coming up with an apparatus that looked like the Fenestrian variant of a bone-knitter.

"His main problem," Granzien explained to Raven, "is that he used up his energy reserves. And you can do nothing to resupply him. He will simply take time to recover. When you use the Force to enhance your body's speed or momentum, as in Force-enhanced running or jumping, you still need your physical body and its energy to perform that feat. The Force can help you speed it up but to run at twice the speed that you could normally achieve, you will need four times the energy. Thus, there is a limit beyond which your body will be overtaxed. Under normal circumstances, this is not likely to happen. It would be like lifting a weight that is far too heavy for you; you would feel that it is beyond your ability and probably not even try it. If you do it nonetheless, it's painful and leaves you seriously drained. To exhaust one's reserves like Eeth just did requires a massive amount of willpower and is quite risky. He will simply need a lot of time and rest to get over it."

Raven couldn't hide the guilt on her face at hearing that. Not only had she caused it, but now Granzien was saying she couldn't help fix him either. "I was trying to free the gazelles, is all. I didn't mean for this to happen." She laid her head into his side, seeking a moment of comfort. It wasn't every day that Raven saw Eeth in this state and she would be lying if she said that it didn't scare her.

Granzien readily wrapped his arms around her.

"You're shivering," he said, frowning. "You must be in shock."

Without releasing his hold on her, he beckoned one of the paramedics over. The women brought a blanket and started treating Raven's wounds. They were not overly serious but the earlier they were cleaned up, the better. Granzien had Raven lean back against his torso while the paramedic worked, which seemed to calm her down. Next to them, Eeth's wounds had been bandaged and the doctor was now fitting Eeth's shoulder into the bone knitter. From the other side, the Prime Minister approached.

"It seems as if Master Koth saved the palace from being blown up," he informed them. "There has been some damage but no casualties. Well, except for two of the king's gazelles that were hit by falling stones. The rest escaped."

Raven's head shot up at this information. Some had survived! That meant that this mess had at least not been in vain. Before she could say anything about it, though, the paramedic tending to her wounds ripped off the tape and she let out a yeowl. Yep, Raven was pretty sure the woman took off half her skin along with the shards of stone!

Granzien smoothed back Raven's hair with his hand in a comforting gesture. "All done," he said in encouragement. "Now it will be treated and bandaged. You will be as good as new by the day after tomorrow."

The Prime Minister gave Ravven a sympathetic smile. Then he focussed his attention on Eeth, a look of concern on his face.

"The king asked to receive Master Koth and express his gratitude," he said, "but… hmm. He doesn't seem to be in any state to go anywhere."

"He is not," said Granzien. "And he will not be for quite a while. Please inform the king that Master Koth and his padawan will have to be returned to Coruscant for treatment and recovery. Padawan Sato and I will stay. With the king's permission, a replacement team will be sent."

"I daresay they will receive that permission," said Anat solemnly. "There is quite some political turmoil here, as you noticed, and we will welcome your help with finding the perpetrators and prevent further unrest. I will inform the king. Most likely, you will be asked to see him in the morning."

Although the idea of being sent back to the Temple would typically horrify Raven, this time it was welcome news. Eeth needed time to heal, and she wanted him to be back home and close to their healers. They would look after him, she knew that, and so she remained silent. That was until she saw the officer whom she had given the slip earlier approaching and sunk a little further into Granzien's hold. Maybe if she looked inconspicuous enough, he wouldn't notice her?

No such luck…

"I see they found you, and by the looks of it, just in time," he told Raven disapprovingly.

"Uh…" Raven scrunched up her face, but the officer ignored this, turning his attention to Granzien and delivered the message he had been sent to convey. "Security will debrief at twenty-one hundred," he told the Jedi master. They were still searching for other devices, although they thought it was unlikely that they would find any.

"I'll be there," said Granzien a little wearily.

The officer nodded curtly, turned another disapproving look at Raven and left. It wasn't up to him to deal with the Jedi kid. He had enough of his plate as it was.

Raven wore a grimace, but risked a look back at Granzien.

"I'd appreciate a little more detail on what happened and your role in it," said Granzien quietly. "Just so I don't look stupid during the debriefing. I'll leave it to Eeth to deal with whatever you might have done that was less than ideal. Just tell me honestly. I don't really have time to drag it out of you, you know."

The paramedic was just about done bandaging Raven's abrasions at this point. She patted the girl's knee sympathetically and left; for a moment, there was just the two of them.

"What makes you think I did anything that was less than ideal?" Raven replied, wounded, although if the state of Eeth were anything to go by, he probably had a right to ask that.

"The behaviour of the security officer who just dropped by, obviously," replied Granzien wryly.

"Oh, him…" Raven feigned a cough.

"Please," said Granzien, even more wearily. "I'll need to make arrangements for you two to be transported … well, wherever they think Eeth should spend the night. Then I need to attend the security debriefing and have your luggage brought to the ship. Just give me the full story, and do it now."

Raven hated to receive orders that forced her into incriminating herself. Sighing, the padawan thunked her head into his chest and started from Eeth's orders. She continued up until she snuck out of the officers' command center. "They received a call about the gazelles. I tried to tell them that I have a gift with animals, that I could help, but they didn't listen. So, I snuck out. I knew were I was going. I had just gotten the gazelles under control and was moving towards the exit when my master took over," she said, looking down at him. "From there I'm not sure what happened. It was all a blur." Quite literally.

"It seems as if he got you out just in time, or you might have shared the fate of those gazelles that were hit by stone slabs," said Granzien. "Right."

He moved Raven onto the stretcher that the paramedics had laid out for her, got up and talked to the doctor.

"They're going to bring the two of you back to our guest quarters," he finally said, returning to Raven's side. "It seems that they prefer to treat people in their homes whenever possible. A nurse will stay with you overnight. Tomorrow morning, a doctor will check on Eeth. If he's fit for transport, you will be brought to the ship and back to Coruscant. As for myself, I need to go to the security debriefing. Will you be alright?"

"Yes. I'm not that bad. I can look after my master," Raven said, feeling a little better at being able to at least guard her master's sleep!

Ten minutes later, and despite her bitching about having to ride on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, Eeth and Raven were met at their guest quarters by Sato. "What the Force happened?" she said, taking in the scene quickly.

"A bomb threat," explained Raven, trying to get up from the stretcher only to be pushed back down and scolded to stay put by the paramedic carrying her. She noticed the worried expression on Sato's face as she took in Eeth's ashen pallor. "He's hurt pretty bad, but he won't die."

Of course the first thing Sato had done was scan them both through the Force, which was why she looked concerned; Eeth's condition was alarming. "What did he do to exhaust himself so spectacularly?"

Why did it always come to this so quickly! "He had to carry me out using Force-enhanced speed. It was a long way to run carrying weight, and negotiating ramps and the like."

Again, Sato looked as if that statement had created more questions than it had answered, but she held her tongue for now; they needed to get Eeth and Raven inside.

The nurse did not want to hear of Raven's idea to guard her master's sleep. Their beds were in separate rooms, after all, and Raven needed to rest. "I'll give you an analgesic hypospray and then you'll go to sleep," she decreed. "If your master wakes up, I can fetch you. But from what your fellow Jedi say, that's hardly likely. Sleep. You've sustained a shock and your wounds need rest to heal."

"I want to stay with my master," Raven protested, unwilling to budge; she would sleep on the floor first, her expression said.

Sato saw this, recognised the stubborn set to her fellow padawan's jaw and decided it was about time to intervene. "The nurse is right," Sato told Raven, stepping between the two before the woman could drug her and drag her to her bedroom … not that Sato would mind witnessing that. Still, she had taken Granzien's lesson to heart and was trying to improve. "What will sleeping on the floor accomplish, other than delaying your own recovery?" she asked plainly.

"I'm not leaving him. It's my fault he's injured, and so I should stay with him," said Raven.

"Even if that's true," and Sato had no idea what the Force had really gone on here, "guarding his sleep and hampering your own recovery won't help him. The most you can do for your master now is to sleep and be well enough to run after him tomorrow." It was what Sato would want to hear if it were her, after all.

Raven opened her mouth to say that she didn't care, but stopped. The notion that she might be better able to help Eeth if she was well herself had not occurred to her.

That pause was all the time the nurse needed. She took Raven by the arm gently. "Come on, you need a few more band-aids and a hypo."

By the time a tired-looking Granzien came back, Raven was asleep and Eeth had not regained consciousness. The nurse was watching over him and monitoring his vital signs.

"I'm afraid the markumi orchid will have to wait a couple of days," Granzien told Sato. "We'll have to take over both the diplomacy and the investigation. Eeth won't be much use for a while. A replacement team has already been dispatched but it'll take them two days to arrive. Eeth and Raven will return to Coruscant tomorrow morning."

Despite feeling bitterly disappointed over this, Sato managed to keep it in check. It might have been the biggest discovery of the decade but she was not without compassion for her fellow Jedi and Eeth looked like bantha shit warmed up. "Alright," she said in a sing-song, resigned tone of voice. Of course she wasn't happy about it – she doubted Granzien was either, for that matter – but their mandate had changed. A lot had changed, and would change, about this mission now after the bomb debacle.


	7. Chapter 7

Granzien did not rouse Sato as early as he had done during the past days. There was no point; there was, unfortunately, no way they could go and look at the markumi orchid today anyway. Thanks to an explosion at the palace the night before, which had drastically altered their mission mandate, too many things needed to be taken care of. First and foremost, they had to see to it that Eeth and Raven were transferred to the ship that would return them to the Temple, and then they would have to meet the king to discuss the repercussions of yesterday's bomb. Granzien and Sato might very well end up tracking down the perpetrators to put an end to the unrest.

The doctor was due to check on Eeth at eight so Granzien went to wake Sato at seven, only to find her already awake. "Get dressed and meet me for breakfast in half an hour," he told her. "Then we'll pack Eeth's and Raven's things for them. Eeth is definitely in no state to do so and Raven should get all the rest she can as well."

"Alright," Sato replied a tad wearily. This turn of events had not exactly gone over well with the senior apprentice, but there was nothing to be done about it. Eeth was in quite a mess and needed to get back to the Temple as soon as practical.

Breakfast was a perfunctory affair. Granzien and Sato ate quickly, and then they took a room each and started packing.

"Master, go away, it can't be morning yet," said Raven, who had woken up when her door was opened. It was a conditioned response thanks to almost a year with Eeth, and one that made her very hard to sneak up on.

Sato smirked, closed the door and summoned the mostly empty bag from the top of Raven's walk-in robe. "Why don't you take advantage of getting to sleep in and go back to sleep?" she suggested while starting to pack things into the bag.

At this comment, Raven became fully conscious and sat bold upright. "Eeth, is he okay? Is he awake? Can I see him?"

"He is, I don't know, and no, not yet," Sato replied to each of her questions.

"Why not?" Raven was now on her feet; there was no chance of her going back to sleep.

Sato guessed as much, and so she didn't try. "Because Granzien is with him now, and then a doctor will be tending to him. He needs peace and quiet."

"Hey, don't patronise me. I can be quiet!" said Raven in a tone that was almost contradictory.

Had Granzien not pointed out that her treatment of Raven had bordered on bullying, Sato might have snapped back. As it was, however, she merely said, "If you want to help, go have a shower and get dressed. Unless of course you want to be taken to the ship looking like that?"

Raven looked down, only then realising that she was clad in nothing more than her underpants. Her chin came out. "I might."

In the meanwhile, Granzien had silently moved around Eeth's room, packing all the man's things. At some point, he realised that he was stacking his clothes rather more carefully than he would ever done with his own. Before this mission, that realisation might have annoyed him. Now, it just made him grin.

At five to eight, he was done. He set the bag down by the entrance door, went to Eeth's bed and sat down on its edge.

"Eeth," he said in a low voice, resting a hand on the man's shoulder. His fellow Jedi did not feel quite as drained as yesterday but his energy reserves were still very low.

For a few seconds, there was no reaction. Then Eeth stirred slightly, which indicated that he was slowly resurfacing from his healing trance. His eyelids fluttered but he could only open them for a second before the light became too bright.

"Is it morning yet?" he murmured.

"Yes," said Granzien. "A doctor will be with you in a moment. If your shoulder has healed well enough, you and Raven will be brought back to the ship. A replacement team is already on its way. It's Kit Fisto with his padawan. They should be more than capable. Until they arrive, Sato and I will take over."

"Thank you," said Eeth. He was not happy about any of this but he knew that Granzien had done what was best. And he was genuinely grateful to the man for having taken charge.

At this moment, a knock on the door signalled that the doctor was there. Eeth would have loved to sit up, but for one thing, his shoulder was still in a bone knitter, and for another thing, he was not sure that he had the energy.

A few minutes later a sloppily dressed Raven entered, eager to see Eeth. It was obvious that she had allowed her uniform to dry her off from the shower she had literally been under long enough to wet her hair … which was still dripping. "Master?" she said, mindful to keep her voice low. She ran to the bedside opposite the doctor so as not to be in his way. It pained her to see him in this state, it really did. "Are you feeling any better? I'm sorry I got you into that mess, I didn't mean to, I swear to the Force I didn't." It had all come out in a rush, and the level of guilt she felt would not have gone unnoticed, even to a non-Force-sensitive.

"Padawan," Eeth murmured, squinting at her and trying not to move as the doctor carefully dislodged his shoulder from the bone knitter. "Do me a favour and dry your hair. You are dripping water all over the place."

"Wait, you look like this," she gestured to the contraption that was currently being removed from his shoulder, "and you're chewing me out over some wet hair?"

The doctor chose that moment to detach the bone-knitter. He had done his best not to cause pain, but this was often a painful process, regardless.

Eeth had a high tolerance for pain and a lot of self-control. Still, he had to refrain from speaking for a moment and focus on breathing. When the pain lessened, he said: "I do not see why my current condition should prevent you from drying your hair properly. Do as I told you. And have some breakfast if you haven't already done so. We might leave this place shortly."

"In about an hour, if I am able to work in peace," the doctor noted.

Raven stared at them both for a moment, and then conceded that arguing would only be hampering Eeth's recovery. Reluctantly, she left to do as ordered.

She wandered into their kitchen area where trays of food waited for her and Eeth. It was unlikely that Eeth would eat now, but she wasn't sure. Raven sat up on the bench, and started picking at a piece of toast; the last thing she wanted to do now was eat.

Granzien followed her out of Eeth's room and sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, eat," he said. "Your master will have my hide if I let you starve. Do you want that on your conscience?"

Despite how she felt, Raven chuckled at this. "I guess not," she agreed and made a better effort at breakfast. Her scrapes were mostly crusted over now, and she was honestly no worse for the wear. Eeth, however… Her guilt was palpable. "What can I do to help?" Because Raven really didn't know what else to do.

"For the moment, not much," said Granzien. "But that will change once you're back on the ship. The nurse will come with you on the shuttle but after that, you'll be on your own. Well, you'll have the pilots, obviously, but those are meant to pilot, not to look after a sick Jedi. Eeth's condition is not critical, as such; if he needed treatment, the doctors wouldn't let him go. But he'll need all the rest he can get and someone to make sure he eats and drinks. That will be your job."

"I can do that." Raven actually smiled for the first time since all this had happened and finished the bit of toast she had been chipping away at.

When she had finished, the nurse checked her wounds. The bacta had done its work; most of the bandages could be removed and the wounds left to heal on their own. A few, where shards of stone had been embedded in the skin, were a little deeper. These were covered in bacta again and rebandaged.

"You should be able to take them off tomorrow," said the nurse. "Ah. Here's the hoverstretcher for your master."

A protocol droid had chimed the doorbell, a stretcher hovering behind it. Granzien handed him Eeth's luggage, Sato gave over Raven's, and then they brought the stretcher to Eeth's bedside.

"I can get up," said Eeth.

"No," said Granzien and the doctor, unisono, causing Sato to smirk.

Eeth sighed. "Alright, then," he said. He allowed Granzien and the doctor to transfer him to the stretcher.

"Have a safe trip," said Granzien. "And don't you dare get up before you arrive at the Temple. Raven will look after you."

"Course I will," added Raven, stepping up to the hoverstretcher and feeling important.

The edges of Eeth's mouth quirked in amusement. He had not expected this mission to reach a point where Granzien was giving him orders. But he knew they were sensible orders.

"I have full confidence in her," he said. "I hardly think I will be able to do much, even if I wanted to. I wish you success with the investigations." 

"Thank you," said Granzien. He bowed to Eeth as the doctor set the hoverstretcher in motion, feeling unexpectedly downcast at seeing the man leave. Then he gave Raven a hug.

"Look after him, and see to it that he eats and drinks," he told her.

"I will. I'm good at giving orders," Raven replied, hugging him close. The idea of ordering Eeth around was kinda appealing, but at the same time, the reason she needed to do so was her fault, she knew that.

Eeth snorted. "Goodbye, Granzien. Padawan Sato," he said. "May the Force be with you."

"And with you," Sato replied, looking first to Eeth and then Raven. It had been interesting working with them, even if Raven was a pain in the ass.

And then they were off.

Eeth had, of course, noticed that Raven felt guilty. Well, so she should. He was going to address this… as soon as he had regained some of his energy. Right now, he was not even able to make the way to the shuttle on his own feet, which was not exactly the condition he wanted to be in for discussing Raven's behaviour. Or her feelings of guilt.

"I think," Eeth told Raven wearily as the shuttle silently sped towards the shore, "I will need to spend most of the day in a healing trance. This will speed up my recovery. I ought to be much better by tomorrow morning. At least, I should be able to sit up. And stay awake for more than an hour or two. Meanwhile, you will work on your assignments and put in at least two hours of kata practice. Can I rely on you to do that?"

"Yes, master, course," she told him, slightly indignant. Then again, Raven did not exactly have a stellar record when it came to completing her classwork. Kata practice? Hell, yes, she would be all over that. It wasn't as fun as sparring, but then, Eeth could hardly be expected to spar with her in the condition he was in. Maybe she could help the pilots, too. A lot was running through Raven's mind right now.

When they reached the ship, Raven took over. She asked the nurse who had accompanied them to take Eeth to his room, and then she went to the cockpit to make sure that the pilots knew what was going on. They did, and so after having been informed that they were about to take off, Raven raced to Eeth's bedroom. "We just left Fenesteer's space port and will be in hyperspace in thirty minutes. Do you want some soup?"

Eeth sighed. "No," he said, "but I suppose I should have some. If you could bring it to me, I will try to finish it. After that, I really will need a healing trance."

Although Raven felt bad for the condition Eeth was in, being able to help him was alleviating that somewhat. Thus, she rushed off to find something that he would like.

Twenty minutes later, the padawan returned with a large cup full of the soup she knew he prefered. It was spicy, but not enough to upset the stomach of a Zabrak. "Try this," she said, sitting on the edge of his bed and holding out the cup. It had a straw, but then, she was trying to make this easy on him.

Eeth had managed to prop himself up on a pillow a little. It made his shoulder hurt, though. Fortunately, he was right-handed. He hated to admit it but he was thankful for the straw. Handling a spoon would have been a bit much. The nurse had helped him to the toilet before she had left the ship, which had been a good thing but had also exhausted him considerably. He hoped the need would not arise again before tonight, by which time he might feel stronger. He did not appreciate the idea of having to ask the pilots for help, or Force forbid, Raven providing him with a bedpan!

When he had finished the soup, he sank back onto the bed. "I will not be able to stay awake any longer," he said. "Unless I enter a healing trance right now, I will pass out. Wake me only in cases of emergency. If there is none, please bring me some more soup five hours from now."

"Yes, master," Raven said and let him be. Granzien had told her that there was no point in trying to help him using their bond, and so she did not. Instead, the padawan went back to the cockpit, made sure everything was okay, and then she found the cargo bay and started working on kata. The rest of that day was spent cycling between kata practice, assignments, hologames and caring for Eeth.

The following morning Raven woke up still fully clad in the uniform she had slept in. Of course, she knew Eeth would frown on that, and so she made an effort to shower, change into a clean uniform and brush her hair before entering his room to check on him. She opened his door, stood in the door frame as he did every morning, and announced in her best Eeth-like impersonation: "Padawan, it is time to get up. No dawdling."

Eeth was not sleeping, though; he was still in a trance. Therefore, while Raven had managed to rouse him from the trance, he had not registered the actual words she had spoken. He stirred and squinted at the chronometre. Normally, he knew what time of the day it was without checking but he was still a little disoriented. His energy levels were slowly returning to somewhere within his tolerance limit, though. He was still feeling weak but he was by far not as dysfunctional as he had been yesterday. Besides, his shoulder had stopped hurting and his wounds were starting to heal. He would have helped them heal faster under ordinary circumstances but he could currently not exactly draw on the Force to speed up the process.

"I would like to try using the refresher and taking a quick shower, padawan," said Eeth. "You had better wait here in case I am not up to that much activity yet and need assistance. Have you had breakfast already?"

Raven was entirely unsurprised that her attempt at humour had fallen flat. Still, her shoulders slumped and she blew out a sigh of exasperation; one day she would make him smile at one of her jokes, one day!

"Do you need me to help you?" she asked, ignoring his question about breakfast. There was no way she could carry him physically, levitate perhaps? Or maybe she could just bring him a jug? Her brow furrowed as she tried to think whether or not they had anything at all in the ship that might work for that.

"I hope not," said Eeth, "but since I have never exhausted myself to the degree that I have the day before yesterday, I am simply not sure what will happen. Have you had breakfast, yes or no?"

While he talked, he slowly sat up, waited until the wave of dizziness that swept across him had passed, and then moved to place his feet on the ground. So far, so good.

"No, master," Raven replied, if only to keep him from asking a third time. She moved to his side as he walked, only stopping when he made the refresher door. If he collapsed in there, she would go and get one of the pilots to help. Yes, she could levitate him, but it would be far easier going for Eeth if she simply had someone to help carry him.

Eeth just about managed on his own, though, and he felt much better for it. He returned to his bed and sat on it, leaning against the backrest.

"Could you find us some breakfast, please?" he asked Raven. "I feel up to eating a normal-sized meal today."

Raven was happy to oblige. Firstly, she liked feeling useful and it was rare that the padawan got to help Eeth like this. Secondly, it helped assuage her guilt over having caused it in the first place.

Half an hour later Raven entered Eeth's bedroom with a tray of toast spread with different savory toppings and some mashed-up eggs. It would be easy to eat in bed and from a tray without getting it all over the place. Or so she assumed. It was set on his bedside table while she went to retrieve her own tray and their drinks. If Eeth had to stay in bed, Raven was going to eat with him. Besides, it would be something different. "If you want more, there are leftovers," she commented, setting the tray on his lap, and pulling a chair from his desk to join him.

"Thank you," said Eeth. "This will be sufficient. Maybe some tea, later. But first, eat your own breakfast. And when we are both done, we will talk. I am lacking some important information."

Raven scrunched up her nose and picked some egg from a piece of toast. "What important information, and about what?" It was not really a question as she knew what he wanted to know. Still, if there was any hope of possibly looking less guilty than she felt, Raven was going to go for it.

Eeth gave her his best patented glare. "You know perfectly well that I will want to know what you were doing in the palace half a minute before the bomb went off," he said sternly.

"Oh, that." Raven fixated on her toast. "I went to save the king's gazelles. At least, I tried to. Some made it, but some were squashed when the roof came down."

The look on Eeth's face clearly said what he thought of her explanation. However, he merely said: "Finish your breakfast while I finish mine. I want to be able to give this conversation my full attention."

Raven frowned. "Can't you eat and hold a conversation at the same time?" she questioned him. It wasn't like she was keen to talk about this, but sitting there in silence while they ate was not going to be comfortable either, especially with this hanging over her head. Or perhaps that was the point?

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Do you really think that this is the time to question my instructions?" he asked coolly. From what he knew about Raven, it was more likely to be her than him who would forget about her food while they talked, and he did not want her to miss out on meals if he could help it. She was tiny enough as it was. Besides, he hardly felt that it would add to the seriousness of the topic if he went hunting for breadcrumbs on his pillow while they talked.

Pff. Was there ever a time deemed right to question him? Raven thought. Thankfully, she had the wherewithal not to state as much and simply ate her toast without further comment.

When both of them had finished, Eeth asked Raven to clear away the trays, garnering a withering look. The ship had droids to take care of menial tasks such as cleaning and washing the dishes so they had no need to concern themselves with such things.

When Raven returned, Eeth pointed her to the chair and said: "Tell me the full story, from the point where you left me."

Raven sat, blew out a long sigh and tried to work out how she was going to explain all this. "Okay, so after you left I was with the guards in the command center." Raven explained how they had been bombarded by an influx of emergency calls, how she had offered to help and how that offer had been ignored. "After a while, though, something came up that I could actually help with. One of the guards realised that the king's collection of Tarchalian gazelles was still locked inside the main atrium. The problem was that none of the guards inside the palace had time to organise harnesses for twelve animals whom they could not control, so they were left for dead." Raven sat up higher in the chair. "I can help with that, and I tried to tell them but again, they ignored me. I didn't have time to waste arguing, so I just left." She raised her hands. "And before you get all prickly. I did stop at the guards station outside the palace to contact you, but they told me not to use my comlink. Again, I didn't have time to split hairs with them. I knew you were working on the bomb, and I thought that I would have just enough time to get us out." Raven went on to explain how she had busted the locks, how it had taken a little longer to control the gazelles than she had predicted and why that was. She gave him a semi-pained expression. "And that's when you came in."

"Yes, because contrary to what you thought, you did NOT have enough time to get out of there," Eeth said pointedly. "Did you really think that was a risk I would have allowed you to take, even if you had been able to call me?"

There was a special kind of heroic stupidity that most padawans fell prey to sooner or later. In Raven's case, it had happened rather sooner than Eeth had anticipated. The problem with this kind of stupid was that it was often deadly. He would have to discourage it by all means.

"Yes, I thought you might allow me to try," Raven shot back, a little more testily than she meant to.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Really?" he asked incredulously. "Do you honestly think your life means so little to me? That I would 'allow you to try' when the alternative to succeeding is not merely failure but death?"

Raven folded her arms across her chest in a way that generally signalled she was becoming defensive. "I didn't go in thinking I was going to fail," she reasoned.

"Yes, I assumed as much," said Eeth curtly. "It is precisely because of this short-sighted, reckless type of decision-making that we do not allow eleven-year-old padawans to make such choices on their own. You were still deep inside the palace thirty seconds before the bomb went off. Half the ceiling came down and it consisted of marble slabs, not durolite panels. Besides, hadn't I told you to wait outside?"

"I did wait outside!" Raven exclaimed. "You told me not to come after you, well, I didn't come after you. I entered it to try save some animals; something that I have a specific gift for doing." There was no way she wanted him to pin disobedience on her here. Raven knew what consequence to expect for that, and it was to be avoided at all costs.

Eeth's eyes narrowed. "Alright, so I gave you very clear instructions you to follow the officer out and on no account to come after me," he said. "Do you mean to say that you understood this as permission to go back into the palace as soon as you felt you had a reason? Wasn't it quite obvious that I wanted you to stay clear of the place until the threat had been averted?"

"Yes, but I thought I could help with the gazelles, and since you didn't say I couldn't, that's what I did. I did try to contact you first." Raven thought it wise to point that out again given the way this conversation was going.

"Padawan, there was a bomb that was about to go off," Eeth snapped. "I had no time and opportunity to make comm calls, even without the risk of setting off the bomb. I might have left a loophole in my instructions, which I gave under massive time pressure, but that was no reason for you to go and exploit it to recklessly risk your life, just because I hadn't explicitly forbidden you from doing so. If that's the way you act as soon as I turn my back, I will simply have to ban you from doing anything whatsoever unless you have my explicit permission. Is that what you want?"

"I didn't set out to exploit any loopholes!" she snapped back, and then thought better of it; Eeth might still be injured, but he had an excellent memory. She raised her hands in placation. "I set out to try and save some gazelles, that's all, I swear it." Raven did absolutely not want further restrictions placed on her, there were enough rules as it was.

"No, that is quite definitely not all," Eeth said coldly. "You completely neglected to factor in the risk to your life. Do you mean to tell me that if you had to decide between saving the gazelles and saving your own life, you would prioritise the gazelles?"

"No, but then I didn't go in there thinking I would fail! I would have had enough time if they weren't so difficult to manage. I ran into an unexpected complication. If I had succeeded, and there was no need for you to come after me, would you still call it reckless? Or are you just mad because my plan failed?"

"I am 'mad'," Eeth said in a voice of deadly calm, "because you recklessly risked your life. It was reckless precisely because you had no idea what to expect and how hard these gazelles would be to handle. Had it turned out to be easy and you had made it out in time, rest assured that I would still be just as displeased with your decision. And make no mistake, I am extremely displeased. I am even more displeased with the fact that you do not seem to understand how stupid and dangerous your actions were. You should consider yourself lucky that you just ruined our mission, instead of getting yourself killed. Your valiant motives are all good and well but they do not justify such an ill-advised decision. I thought you had learned as much from the consequences of your disobedience during your zoology field trips. Obviously, you have not. Which means that I will have to reinforce the lesson."

Okay, so Raven could handle having her actions considered stupid and reckless, as much as she did not wish, right now, to admit that they were, but to be blamed for ruining her first mission was just too difficult a pill to swallow! The padawan stood from her chair, arms folded tightly across her chest, and pinned Eeth with the most intimidating glare she could muster. "I did not ruin anything. If you want to blame someone for ruining things, blame the assholes who planted the bomb." His threat had also not gone unnoticed; she had to get out of this, because there was no way she wanted another run-in with his cane.

"I am entirely blaming them for planting a bomb," Eeth said sternly. "I am, however, blaming you, and no one else, for going in there and forcing me to come after you at a speed that completely drained me and got both of us injured. Or do you think the Temple is making us return and sending a replacement team for no good reason?" As a matter of fact, the conversation had just about reached the point at which he felt sorely tempted to turn Raven over his knee and spank some sense into her. But he just was not up to that right now, much as he loathed to admit it to himself.

"I didn't force you to save me, nobody forced you to save me. You have choices, too! Maybe yours are just as reckless as mine?" She was being petulant and Raven knew it, but well, she didn't like what he was saying.

"That," said Eeth icily, "is the most preposterous thing I have heard in a long time. Yes, I chose to put myself in danger in order to save your life. In contrast to you, I was well able to calculate the risk because I have both better judgment and more experience. Given that you are fortunately still alive, I think you had better not complain too loudly. In fact, I do not want to hear another word out of you for now. Put your nose in the corner and think about who is to blame for what here. And you will stay there until I give you permission to come out."

Raven looked at him, her expression morphing from petulant to surprise, and settling on regretful. He couldn't be serious?

Eeth was entirely serious, and the expression on his face said as much.

Raven's jaw squared and her chin came up. Despite wanting to unload a mountain of complaints about this juvenile treatment, she did not. The last time he had ordered her silent and she had disobeyed him, he had paddled her in the Temple's speeder garage. She might be brave but she wasn't crazy. Thus, the eleven-year-old went to the corner by his door, stuck her nose in it, folded her arms and huffed.

"Arms at your sides," said Eeth immediately.

Her lips pulled into a thin line at that order, not that anyone could see from this angle. It took Raven a moment to force herself to comply because for some reason, it felt so much worse to stand with her arms by her sides. Her hands balled into fists, because that somehow took the edge off.

Eeth leaned back into his pillow and closed his eyes. He would have much prefered to be able to punish Raven and get it over with, at least as far as the initial showdown went, but this was not an option. Thus, he was going to give Raven time to cool down - a lot of time - and use it to get some rest and speed up the healing process.

Alas, standing around idle was not one of Raven's strong suits. After a few minutes she started fidgeting, and then she sighed, shifting her weight from foot to foot. This wasn't fair. "Time out is for babies," she finally protested, when her patience for this task had worn thin.

"Time out is for padawans who are not mature enough to see what they did wrong," replied Eeth without opening his eyes. "I told you I did not want to hear another word out of you. That will be three strokes with the belt, once I am in any condition to deal them out. You had better stop talking and fidgeting unless you want me to add to that count."

The expression on Raven's face would have spoken volumes, had anyone been able to see it. Her mouth fell open and she almost turned to face him, but thankfully, her brain kicked in about then and she refrained from anything that might further add to her woes.

After what felt like another impossibly long period of time, Raven finally softened. She had been forced to contemplate the behaviour that led her here, as Eeth had not allowed her to do anything else. "Master, please lemme stop. I'm sorry that I messed up our mission and that I was reckless." Raven sniffled, but she wasn't crying. She wasn't sure how much longer she could stand there, though, it was driving her crazy.

"Alright," said Eeth grimly. "That is a start."

He slowly stood up from the bed and found his belt hanging over his chair. He took it up and started taking off the utilities.

"Let us get this over with," he said. "Bare your bottom and bend over the chair."

"Aw! Master, no, I said I was sorry. Please." Sure, Raven was glad to be freed from her imprisonment, but this wasn't the sort of reprieve she had in mind. Still, she moved towards the chair, because if he wasn't going to let her out of this, the last thing she wanted was to add to the count.

"Once your misbehaviour crosses a certain line," Eeth said grimly, "I am not interested in apologies. I am interested in making sure you will think twice before doing it again. I give you ten seconds to get into position." If only because he needed to get back to bed!

Raven knew two things here. Firstly, that she had no idea how badly this was going to hurt, as Eeth had never used his belt on her before. Secondly, he probably shouldn't be doing this in his current condition which meant, a) he was overtaxing himself, and b) it might not be all that bad. Unwilling to let the ten seconds run out, Raven quickly complied, but not before a final effort at getting out of this. "You shouldn't be doing this. You're still recovering, and, the healers will be mad." Because it was probably true!

"If I am well enough to use the restroom and shower on my own, I am well enough to deal out three strokes with the belt," Eeth snapped. "Disobedience will always have consequences. I expect you to mind the orders I give you during a punishment. Whining and complaining will never buy you any favours."

With this, he doubled the belt over in his hand and brought it down onto Raven's bottom three times in rather quick succession, as hard as he could in his present state. Which meant that this was about as bad as it normally was because he usually restrained himself considerably. Human skin was vulnerable and he always took great care to avoid any lasting damage.

As far as Raven was concerned, Eeth had just taken the skin clean off of her! She was able to take the first lick without yelping, if only because it had taken the breath out of her. The next two drew pained wails that grew in both volume and intensity with each. It wasn't enough to have her in tears, but it was certainly enough to have her seriously regretting disobeying him. Never again. Or so she promised herself as she stood, both hands rubbing frantically at the burn, and shot him a watery, wounded expression.

Eeth laid the belt onto the table and lowered himself back onto the bed. "The next time I tell you to stand in the corner," he said, "you will do so without backtalk, until I allow you to come out. Or I will double the count. Now do some class work. I need another healing trance. We will talk more once the healers release me."

As much as Raven wanted to protest that, she found herself turning and running for her bedroom without comment. Her ass hurt, her pride hurt, and she had ruined their mission to boot! Focussing on classwork was not going to be easy after all that had gone on. Well, at least she wouldn't have to concentrate on it for too long before her curfew; their arrival was scheduled for around two in the morning, after all. From there, there would be a team of healers waiting for them, ready to cart Eeth off to the healers' wing where he would receive the attention he needed.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Yay! We've made it to the final chapter in this story. Thanks to everyone who IMed, read and reviewed. As always, it is appreciated as we love to hear what people think of our stories and ideas.

Eeth's and Raven's story will continue, of course. We have many more stories written in this series that we hope to publish consecutively. The next in line is called "Lessons of school, lessons of life." It continues where this story left off. In it, Eeth's first padawan Lakhri will finally make an appearance and Raven will be forced to make a big leap of faith. We hope you will continue following us!

* * *

"I guess you are good to go," said Healer Ca'acktee to Eeth. "Take it easy for the next week or so. No workouts for three days, and daily physiotherapy sessions after that. No Force work until your energy levels are back to average. And I will take you off the mission roster for the next month."

Eeth was not exactly pleased with the healer's pronouncements but he did not express those feelings.

"I understand," he merely said. "Come on, padawan. We are scheduled to go and see the Council in forty minutes. That is just enough time to drop off our luggage and get dressed properly."

They had arrived last night and immediately been admitted to the Healers' Wing. With Raven, there had been no real need for that but the healers had thought that it would be easier to just put her in the same room as Eeth, look after her wounds and do the usual post-mission check-up in one go. It turned out that Eeth did not need all that much treatment himself, after all. The healing trances that he had spent most of the trip in had largely been effective in restoring his energy levels to the minimum of what he needed to function. The healers had worked on healing the damage to his left shoulder thoroughly for several hours. It was now early afternoon and they seemed to have finally run out of things that could do to improve his condition. Eeth was glad for it. He was impatient to get out of the plain, comfortable clothes the healers had given him and back into proper Jedi attire. He was not quite as impatient to get the Council debriefing over with. Failure never sat well with him, even if it was not his fault; and discussing his padawan's misbehaviour during a mission was not exactly his favourite pastime either. Nevertheless, they would, of course, be on time.

Raven was tired, her eyes were stingy, and she didn't want to go to this council meeting. They had arrived at two o'clock the previous morning and she had not slept well despite the fact that the healers had kept her with Eeth. In fact, the time spent in the Healers' Wing had just added to her guilt. Apparently, what had started out as honorable intentions had turned into reckless and stupid pretty fast, and she was pretty sure the Council was going to side with Eeth on that. When they reached their quarters, the first thing Raven did was run for her bedroom and dive onto her bed … it was just so comfortable. "Tell them that we're sleeping." Raven called, in response to Eeth's instruction to hurry along.

"If I have to tell them that you delayed us, they will not be pleased," Eeth said sternly. "Nor will I. Get dressed into proper clothes, brush your hair and join me in ten minutes."

"_If I have to tell them that you delayed us, they will not be pleased,_" Raven mumbled in a mock-Eeth tone. There was, of course, more than tiredness behind her reluctance to see the Council. Eeth had told her that what happened with the gazelles would be in the report, and she wasn't really sure what to expect from that.

This was all that ran through her mind as she got ready. Suffice it to say, when Raven emerged exactly ten minutes later, she was apprehensive.

"Come, padawan," said Eeth curtly and led her out of their quarters. He was not looking forward to this talk any more than Raven was. He was hiding at well but to people who knew him intimately, it would still have been obvious that he was annoyed and impatient to get this over with. To those who did not know him quite as intimately – well, his face was the usual impenetrable mask.

Raven was not doing quite as well hiding her emotions. Her tummy rumbled, not out of hunger, but nerves, and she started fidgeting with the hem on her tunic as they walked. "What are they going to do to me?" Raven finally asked when they were just metres from the Council's reception.

Eeth raised his eyebrows, stopped walking for a moment and looked down on her.

"Since this was your first mission-related offense," he said, "and since you did very well otherwise, I am inclined to say they will give you the scolding you deserve and issue a warning. They would be well within their rights to deal out a formal punishment, though. You will just have to wait and see."

Okay, so Raven kind of figured that the Council could be prickly, but she had not expected them to issue formal punishments. Wasn't that her master's job?! The padawan paled, her expression telegraphing her thoughts. "But, uh. Say they did that, would you then consider the slate clean, too?" Raven also wanted to know what they might use to deal out said formal correction, if anything? Would she be better or worse off? But she kept those questions to herself for the moment.

"No, I would most definitely not," said Eeth sternly. "Nor would the Council expect me to. Now come. No more dawdling."

Raven's mouth went dry and she was suddenly having trouble swallowing. One punishment of that calibre was bad enough, but possibly two? That was unimaginable. Had they not heard of double jeopardy! For the first time, the seriousness of what she had done started to truly dawn. It had to be really bad to earn that sort of repercussions. Despite her master's warning, Raven continued to drag her feet. She absolutely did not want to do this.

Eeth walked to the middle of the Council chamber, with Raven trailing behind him, and stood, indicating for Raven to stand at his side. He bowed to the assembled Council members, his face completely blank. Normally, he was, of course, sitting among them but whenever a Council member had to report on a mission or, in the worst case, their padawan was receiving a formal reprimand, they stood facing the Council like any other Jedi.

"Eeth," said Mace Windu. "We received report from Master Granzien this morning. The backup team arrived last night. He and Sato managed to narrow down the list of suspects considerably and find a solid lead. We expect that Kit Fisto and his apprentice will be able to apprehend the culprits soon. In the meanwhile, Granzien is busy examining a major botanical discovery of Padawan Sato's."

Eeth nodded his head once in acknowledgment and waited for him to continue. He saw no need to comment.

"From what we gathered from Master Granzien's report," Mace said, "you knocked yourself out and broke your shoulder, rescuing your padawan from the royal palace just before the bomb went off. We would like to learn more about why, exactly, that was necessary."

He turned towards Raven, who was practically cringing by this point.

"Maybe you could enlighten us, Padawan Raven," he said in a voice that brooked no objection. From Granzien's report, it was obvious that she had reason to feel guilty. Thus, Mace had decided he wanted to hear this from her.

Raven swallowed, looked at Mace, and then around at the other Council members, all of whom were treating her to their own brand of displeased expressions. "Uh." No, that would not do! The padawan cleared her throat and looked up at Eeth who was standing by her side. She wanted to be like him, and so Raven was. She straightened, relaxed the death grip she had on her tunic, jutted out her chin and tried to at the very least look like she wasn't about to run for it. Eeth would catch her, and Raven was no coward. She started from the beginning, reiterating the story practically verbatim to that which she had told Eeth, and doing her best not to look at her feet. "The king's gazelles were something I could help with, but…" Raven paused.

"But?" Prompted Plo Koon.

"But I did it without thinking about the risks to my own safety."

"Worth it, you believe?" Yoda questioned her. He sensed that she believed herself to have been justified.

Which was kind of true. Raven did think the risk had been one worth taking, although perhaps she had overestimated her skills. "I'm good with animals. I thought I could handle it."

"Handle it you did not. Injured your master was," reprimanded Yoda. This time his tone was not so gentle.

Raven cringed, her calm façade cracking for a moment as she took an involuntary step behind Eeth. If the floor could open up and swallow her now, she would be forever grateful.

Eeth, however, moved immediately. There was no way he was going to allow Raven to hide behind him when it was her own behaviour that had brought her into this position. He rested a hand on Raven's shoulder and pushed her forward, into the limelight, again. The brief and possibly slightly encouraging squeeze he gave her in the process was entirely unplanned.

"We expect you to face up to what you did, Padawan Raven," said Mace Windu, glaring at her. "It was reckless, dangerous, unwise, and disobedient."

"Wait, I didn't disobey," Raven protested, having been forced back under their scrutiny.

"Told you to wait, your master did. Failed to do this, you have," pointed out Yoda.

Raven huffed. She had lost that argument earlier with Eeth and she doubted it would go much better now. Thus, she simply stood there and folded her arms. "I'm sorry," she said, because contrition was something that did not usually fail.

"So you should be," said Mace Windu grimly. "It was no small inconvenience you caused the Order, forcing us to withdraw your master and send a replacement team. More importantly, the risk to your own life that you took is not something that we are prepared to take lightly. Eeth, I trust you will call your padawan to task for this?"

"Most definitely," said Eeth, equally grimly.

The Council members exchanged wordless looks for a moment. Eeth kept his face carefully neutral. He was not going to interfere with their decision.

After the pause had lasted about twenty seconds and Raven was looking as uncomfortable as humanly possible, Saesee Tiin said, "We will let you off with a warning this time. Any further significant misdemeanour will result in an official reprimand and a period of probation which will involve the suspension of your mission eligibility and possibly further punishment."

"We cannot afford this kind of irresponsible behaviour," Mace Windu added gravely. "No matter what your skills are, sometimes the only thing to do is to sit, obey your orders and wait. If you don't have the discipline to do so, we cannot send you on missions. So you had better pull yourself together and take your orders seriously."

Raven wanted to jump up and down screaming that she DID take her orders seriously, that she had been trying to help! But she just wasn't feeling it any longer. In fact, she felt downright miserable, and the last thing on her mind was adding further fuel to the fire. Thus, she simply gave a curt nod, hugged her arms to her chest a bit tighter as if the act was somehow holding her all together, and hoped to the Gods that be that they were done with her.

Eeth frowned and sent Raven a brief surge at disapproval through their bond at her non-verbal response, garnering a wince.

"She will," he said calmly.

"That will be all, then," said Mace Windu. "We received the healers' report, by the way, Eeth. You will be off Council duty for the rest of the week. We will see you next Monday."

Eeth was not pleased with this, nor was he happy with the healers for recommending this, but he hid it well. His face impassive, he bowed politely.

"May the Force be with you," he said.

For Raven, that had gone about as terrible as she had expected. Well, perhaps not; they hadn't actually used any form of physical correction for which the padawan was eternally grateful. She bowed and followed Eeth from the Council chambers, still without a word. Apparently, the eleven-year-old had gone mute which was highly uncharacteristic for her, but well, she had just been through an ordeal and wasn't sure she knew what to say, even if she had had the inclination to speak.

Eeth was not in a talkative mood either; not that he ever was, strictly speaking. He led the way to their quarters and pointed Raven to the couch. He himself sat in an armchair, leant forward, supporting his elbows on his upper thighs, and fixed Raven with a stern look.

"I want to know that you understand what you are going to be punished for," he said. "Tell me."

Right now Raven was feeling about as rotten as humanly possible. Eeth had mentioned that this was on par with the chicken debacle, so she knew that whatever he decided to do, it would no doubt begin with his cane. It briefly crossed her mind to make a run for it, but she was no coward. Besides, he'd catch her, she was pretty sure of that, and then it would be worse. "I took unnecessary risks with my safety when I went after the gazelles, and it was after you told me to stay out of the palace." By now Raven was done arguing her point; it could only make it worse for her if she did.

"Correct," Eeth said grimly. "You also forced me to rescue you whereby I was injured and completely drained. That was not your intention, I know; but such things may happen when you make rash decisions and take incalculable risks. There are two major issues I have with your behaviour. One of them is that you went out of your way to interpret my instructions to your liking, instead of stopping to think what I meant by them. We cannot work as a team when you behave like that. Obeying your orders to the letter is all good and well but I need to rely on you to obey the spirit of my instructions as well, to the best of your abilities. The other issue is your complete disregard for your safety. I grant you that there might be situations, during missions, that will require you to deviate from your instructions, regardless of whether I left loopholes or not. Obviously, the first thing I expect you to do if that happens is to ask for new instructions. If that is not possible for some reason, you never, ever make decisions that fail to take into account the risks to your own life. Getting yourself killed is too high a price to pay in nearly every situation. There are some very rare exceptions, but for as long as you are my padawan, you will leave it to me to be the judge of that. Am I clear on that?"

Raven had wanted to interrupt him, to say that it wasn't true, but she just couldn't. Because as much as she didn't want to admit it, she had exploited a loophole to justify her want to feel useful, even if it wasn't a conscious effort at the time. Raven pulled her knees up into her chest. Yes, she understood him, but no, she didn't want to say it.

"I asked you a question," Eeth said quietly. "I expect an answer."

"Yes, master. Clear. I didn't think by saving some gazelles that I was going to endanger the both of us. I guess I did, though." Raven looked up at him for the first time since sitting down on the couch he had pointed her to. "I'm sorry." Raven knew that sorry sometimes didn't cut it and she kinda guessed this was going to be one of those times, but it was all she had left to offer.

Eeth nodded curtly. He was not in the habit of offering forgiveness before the punishment had been taken, however.

"Very well," he said. "For recklessness and disobedience on this level, you will always receive the cane. Go and fetch it."

Raven stood, her expression a mixture of desperation and fear. "Master, please. It hurts too much. Please, I'll do anything else that you can think of." She stepped up to where he still sat on the chair. "Spank me. Here, I'll go over your knee and I won't even complain?" She started unbuckling her belt, hoping that this would be enough to spare her.

"You will do that tomorrow night," Eeth said sternly, "and the nights after that. Today, I will cane you. Either you fetch the cane right this instant, or I will put you across my knee, spank you soundly and then send you to fetch the cane. Your choice. I give you five seconds to make it."

"Awwwww!" Raven whined, jumping around on the spot, her hands still clutching her belt. She didn't want the cane, but hearing that she had another extended punishment coming up was enough to have her sniffling. Thinking herself cowardly for breaking down over correction, Raven ran to the cupboard where she knew it was kept, took out the cane and … well, she wasn't as fast to return to Eeth, but returned to him all the same. She clutched the cane in her hands. It was an innocuous looking thing, only about ninety centimeters long and no thicker than her own thumb, but fuck, did it hurt!

Eeth stood, took the cane from Raven's hand and pointed towards the dining table. "Bare your bottom and bend over a chair," he said. "We will talk more about the rest of your punishment once you have taken your caning."

Raven was decidedly unhappy about this and walked to the table like she were being lead to her own execution. Okay, so it wasn't exactly that drastic but when you were about to take twelve strokes with a cane, it came pretty close. Reluctantly, Raven undid her belt, set it on the table and pulled her trousers and underpants to her knees. The next part was harder, but after a second or two, she managed to bend over the chair. Her entire body was tensed up tighter than a drum. Why? Because for some reason, it felt like doing so might just stave off the initial intensity.

This was an incorrect assumption but not one that Eeth was going to correct. It was his task to discipline his errant padawan, after all, not to give her advice on how to minimize the pain during said discipline. He used the Force to restrain Raven slightly, making it hard for her to break position, and without further ado raised the cane and brought it down across her bottom in a precise, horizontal line. He used about the same amount of force as he had for the chicken incident. Considering that he was going to deal out twelve strokes, he felt that this was the harshest that an eleven-year-old human could take.

Okay, so initially it didn't feel too bad, maybe this might not be as bad as she rememb …

F.U.C.K!

Raven might have let out a wail at that point, but the truth was that any breath she had in her was lost as a white hot line of fire branded its way directly into her muscles. She had forgotten that the pain was so intense, that it took her brain a second or two to catch up with her ass. The next, although lower, added to her desperation and by the third she found her breath and let out a wail that didn't pause as the next stroke was added.

Entirely unperturbed, Eeth continued in a steady rhythm. Raven had been completely out of line, she deserved this, and she was going to take all of it. If this did not make clear to her how serious her transgression had been, he did not know what would.

Right now, Raven was entirely focussed on the pain. There was no longer any numb sensation, as the pain from the last stroke crested into utter desperation just as the next one landed, throwing her pain receptors into overload. It was a level of intensity that simply needed to be experienced to be believed; nothing else existed, or could exist. All her crying, wailing, pleading and begging seemed to fall on deaf ears, too! Did Eeth mean to smack her this hard? To make it hurt this bad? The thought left her as fast as it had come, though, as there really was no focusing on anything else but the pain. Her control left on the ninth, and she tried to stand only to discover that she was unable to do this without some focus which, of course, there was no hope of achieving at this point.

With calm determination, Eeth completed the dozen, painting a dozen parallel welts from the crown of Raven's bottom to the tops of her thighs. Then he laid the cane onto the table and released the restraint he had placed on Raven. Since he doubted that she would hear anything he was saying at this point, he gave her a moment to realise that it was over and then started helping her up.

By this point Raven had given up begging and pleading and put all her energy into yelling and squealing. In fact, she was pretty sure that she had only achieved that pitch a couple of times in her life. The problem with receiving the cane was that the pain did not immediately subside; it continued getting worse for a good thirty seconds after the fact. Raven shot up the moment she felt Eeth helping her to stand, and started jumping around in circles and trying to rub out the agony. Again, rubbing didn't do much to confuse the pain signals. If anything, it made it feel a bit worse, and so she stopped with the rubbing and kept with the hopping. Her face was a hot mess, covered in snot and tears, but again, she wasn't thinking about that right now.

Eeth let her be for half a minute. Then he produced a handkerchief from his pocket. He rested his left hand on Raven's shoulders to calm her down and stop the hopping. "Clean yourself up a little," he said quite gently, holding out the handkerchief to Raven with his right. He was willing to offer a hug but was unsure whether Raven would want it. Eeth did not want to impose.

The handkerchief was accepted, and she used it to blow her nose and swipe some of the snot from her face. Although she did not blame Eeth for caning her, not really, she did have a tendency to sometimes hold a grudge after punishment. This was going to be one of those times. Thus, she folded both arms about her chest and did not meet his eye. "C-can I go to m-my room?" she asked, unable to keep her breath from catching in her chest. Raven didn't want time to pull herself together, she wanted time to sulk.

"No," said Eeth flatly. He might not impose hugs but nor was he willing to tolerate sulking. Besides, this was not over yet, not by a long shot.

"You will meditate for half an hour now," he said. "Here, in the common room. When you are done, I will talk to you about the rest of your punishment."

Although she didn't like those orders, there was no way in the universe that Raven was going to question or disobey anything Eeth said right now. Which was why she pulled up her trousers and limped off to her meditation mat without argument. It sat by the door leading out to their balcony and usually it was a comfortably peaceful place with the plants outside and the open sky. Tonight, however, there was nothing comfortable about it; her ass had its very own heartbeat that she could feel thumping against the fabric of her trousers as she knelt. This was going to be an ordeal.

Eeth knew that but he happened to think it was well-deserved. He was also tired. His energy levels were still low and he had been through a lot of healing and a Council meeting before having started on Raven's punishment. He went to the kitchen to wash his hands and make some tea, then sank back down into an armchair, which he rarely did. Having taken a few sips of tea, he closed his eyes and … dozed off without meaning to. For probably the first time ever since he had been a toddler.

Eeth and Raven shared a training bond. Granted, it was still quite underdeveloped as such things went, but she did notice when he dozed off. One eye cracked opened, and very slowly she turned her head to check. Yep, he was out like a light. The padawan used that moment to rub her backside and rearrange her kneeling position; it wasn't comfortable to begin with, let alone having to deal with it after a caning. Of course, Raven was only eleven and so the notion of creeping into her bedroom was something she spent a few minutes contemplating the pros and cons of. It stopped relatively abruptly, though, when she imagined him asking how her meditation had gone. Raven couldn't effectively lie to Eeth, at least not yet. Also, it was not worth risking while she still hurt so badly; one swat with his hand would be enough to have her all apart. Thus, she let out a put upon sigh at her lack of bravery, set her watch for the remaining time and kept at the meditation until the half hour was up.

Eeth woke up with a start, horrified to realise that he had slept and that his tea had turned lukewarm. Something was buzzing, which was probably what had jolted him awake. He turned to find Raven switching off her timer and rising from her meditation mat stiffly.

"Padawan, please fetch a tin of bacta from the medical supplies cabinet," he said. "I will not be able to provide Force-aided healing but some bacta will doubtlessly be helpful."

Finally, an order that Raven didn't mind obeying! Despite wanting to run for the tin, she could not; her ass hurt too much and a stiff-legged walk was about the best she could manage without further tormenting her ass. Wordlessly, she handed him the tin. Her eyes were dry now, but she still sniffled occasionally; she had not enjoyed the last forty-five minutes in the slightest and it showed in her sullen expression.

"Bare your bottom and lie on the couch," said Eeth. "And stop sulking. You deserved this, and you had better make an effort to learn from it, rather than feeling hard done-by." For that matter, he was feeling rather hard done-by himself. To fall asleep in the middle of the day! He hoped that aging was not going to be like this.

Raven gave him a look that was somewhere in the middle of wounded and pouting, but did as instructed. It was hard for her to just to switch off the sulking! At least the bacta would help – Force, just about anything would help right now. That said, the urgency had died down somewhat during her meditation and it was now more like a dull throb that seemed to radiate across her entire bottom half, as opposed to the outright agony of earlier. Raven buried her face in the cushion and waited.

Eeth unscrewed the tin of bacta and started spreading it across her bottom in a thin layer.

"Padawan, what you did during this mission makes it very hard for me to trust you in critical situations," he said. "I get the feeling that you do not quite understand why, exactly, your transgression was so serious. You could have died on Fenesteer. You would not have been the first padawan who wanted to make a difference, ignored their orders, did not think things through and ended up severely injured or dead. So, in order to gain some insight into the extent of that problem you will write an essay on at least ten different cases in which a padawan was injured or killed due to reckless behaviour during missions. You will conduct research on these cases in the database and describe your findings. No less than one page per case. You will be spanked every night after dinner until you have finished the essay to my satisfaction. Do you have any questions on this part of your punishment?"

It was a good thing Raven had her head buried in a pillow, because hearing that he was going to spank her until she finished ten pages had her groaning in protest. Then again, maybe it was not going to be as bad as she first thought? Raven did the maths. If she used every second of her free time to work on it, realistically, she could have ten pages done in about three or four days. That was if he didn't assign her additional tasks. The padawan silently contemplated this for a moment. It was still far from what she wanted to hear, but it wasn't as bad as being spanked every night for a week! "No, master," Raven replied, keeping her thoughts to herself for the time being.

"Good," said Eeth. "That was the first part and it will address your lack of concern for your own health and life. There is another issue that needs to be addressed, though, which is your apparent conviction that you know better than those who are in charge of you. You need to learn to submit to the judgment of your superiors, and that is obviously not something you find easy to do. Therefore, I will see to it that you obtain some practice. For the next week, your days will be structured by me from morning to night. You will not leave my sight without permission and you will do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it. I will walk you to classes and pick you up when they are finished. You will not even use the restroom or fetch yourself a drink without having obtained my permission first. I am doing this because you need to learn to think before acting on your impulses, as you need to learn to behave in a manner that makes it possible for me to grant you any degree of freedom. Is that quite clearly understood?"

At this, all of Raven's plans for getting her essay done, not to mention actually having any sort of life for the next week, went out the window. She rose onto her elbows and twisted to face him. "You can't do that! Master, please, this is not fair!" The padawan simply couldn't help it. Eeth's declaration had gone over like a lead balloon.

The expression on Eeth's face darkened considerably. "It is a consequence of your own choices," he snapped, "and you will accept it, whether you like it or not. Any transgression of the rules that I just outlined will earn you an immediate paddling, as will any further complaint about the fairness of all this. May I remind you that I am the one who is restricted from Force work and workouts and has been taken off the mission roster, as a consequence of your decision to disobey your orders? You had better not start a discussion about the fairness of any of this."

"But, you're treating me like a baby! I'm sorry that I went back for the gazelles, and I get that it was wrong and why. I'll never do it again. You don't have to do this to me. No other padawans have to go through this." Raven's eyes became overbright and her final word caught in her throat; she simply couldn't imagine how horrible a week like that would be, especially for someone who was typically autonomous and enjoyed her independence.

"Nonsense," said Eeth sternly, refusing to pity her. "It might not be a common punishment but I am hardly the first to impose it. When you do something that warrants punishment, you do not argue my decisions. Now stop complaining unless you want to find out how serious I was about my threat."

When he had gotten dressed before the Council meeting, he had, in fact, stuck his paddle into the back of his belt as was his habit when he was at the Temple. And he would have no qualms about using it.

Raven sniffled once and buried her face in her pillow; she did not want him to see how badly she was taking this.

Eeth rose and said: "Continue lying here for ten more minutes until the bacta has taken effect. Then we will go to the gym. I cannot work out at the moment but that is no reason for you to miss out on exercise."

Raven didn't respond; she just lay there and sniffled into the cushion. To say that the padawan was taking this hard was probably an understatement, but she honestly couldn't imagine how in Hoth she was going to make it through the next week with her sanity intact. What made it all worse was that he wouldn't even let her gripe about it!

Realistically, Eeth knew that this was going to be an ordeal for him as well. But he honestly believed that Raven needed to learn a lesson, and this seemed like an effective way to teach it.

The rest of that day was trying for Raven. After their workout Eeth had ordered her to shower. Then, he had set her to work on the essay, which he had her stop well before she was ready in order to eat dinner. To say that Raven was hating this treatment was a gross understatement! In fact, by that evening's meditation the frustration that had bottled up inside her was palpable, and it took quite some time to release it into the Force. Although she really wanted to retaliate, by bedtime Raven simply didn't have it left in her and she used the refresher and got into bed without protest.

When they had had breakfast the next morning, Eeth said: "I will bring you to the classroom in which your first period takes place. I will pick you up after the last period." This would essentially leave her free of supervision during breaks; but then, there were clear rules in place regarding where students were allowed to spend those breaks.

There were, but today Raven didn't care where she had the breaks, as long as it was out from under Eeth's watch! Fortunately, the middle break was shared with Bindi whom she had her last class with, and Raven spent the half hour bitching about what an ogre Eeth was and how unfair this treatment was.

Bindi was a sympathetic ear, which Raven needed right now. "Will he really be waiting for you? He might be bluffing?"

"This morning I went to get some juice without permission, and he told me off." Raven thought that was enough said.

"A once off, perhaps?" Bindi reasoned.

"He said if I did it again, he'd swat me."

"Oh." Although Bindi was truly sympathetic to her friend's predicament, secretly, she found talking about such things fascinating in a way that she couldn't explain.

Of course, Raven was oblivious to this. Besides, she was entirely wrapped up in her own misery right now. She sighed. "I'm already sick to death of it, and it has only been half a day."

"You have class breaks, that's something, right?" Bindi was trying to be comforting. But the truth was that personally, that sort of control wouldn't bother her. But then, she had no problem with authority and rarely found trouble herself.

Raven just looked at her, her expression dour. She knew that Bindi was just trying to cheer her up, but right now that was hard to do.

Typically, when their final class ended each day, Raven was among the last to leave, preferring to linger and chat with her classmates. Today, however, she shot up from her seat and was out the door in a flash. Why? Because she didn't want her classmates seeing that Eeth was picking her up every day after class! Sure, once or even twice it could be explained away, but consistently for an entire week? No chance. "Let's go, let's go," she quietly urged Eeth so that no one might overhear.

"I will walk as fast or as slowly as I want to," said Eeth sternly. He was, in fact, walking no more slowly than he usually did, but he was not walking any faster either.

"Fine." Raven didn't look back. She kept her head down and walked as fast as she could towards their quarters. Sure, if anyone questioned her she would eventually have to come clean; either that or come up with creative lies each day. The problem with the latter was that it often ended up in speculation that turned out to be worse than the actual truth!

Eeth had never let the accusation that he was embarrassing his padawan bother him. Lakhri had given him that line any number of times and it had never caused Eeth to relent. As a matter of fact, as a padawan he had learned some lessons in very embarrassing ways because anything else had not worked for him. In short, he did not care whether Raven's peers knew that she was being punished and whether Raven did not want them to know. If she did not like it, she would simply have to learn to rein in her impulsiveness.

That was easier said than done. Raven was quite a strong-willed, independent personality which was why she was in this situation to begin with. She bucked Eeth's authority three times that afternoon. The first two times, which had been relatively minor lapses, earned her a reprimand; at the third occurrence, she was unceremoniously tucked under Eeth's arm and received half a dozen swats with the paddle. Her mounting frustration eventually resulted in a blow up over that evening's punishment.

Raven argued – with validity, if you asked her – that getting spanked was unfair since Eeth was ultimately controlling how fast she could finish the ten-page writing assignment. Eeth was not amused.

"I am giving you more than enough time to complete your assignment," he snapped. "Anything more would be to the detriment of your class work, Force work, training and other chores. What did you expect would happen? That you would complete this assignment to my satisfaction by mid-afternoon and be saved the nightly spankings?"

Yes, that was exactly what she had hoped would happen but apparently, it was not to be.

"I was going to make this a handspanking," Eeth said grimly, "but I think this lesson needs some emphasis. Go and fetch me the leather paddle."

Had Raven been in this frame of mind but a week ago, she might have told him no. As it was, however, she had already endured more than enough instances where even minor disagreeableness had been met with decidedly unpleasant consequences. Thus, Raven fetched the paddle from his cupboard, and endured yet another lesson on curbing her impulsive nature.

Despite a rocky start to this week, by the third day Raven had given up fighting. Mostly. There were a few times at which Eeth had to remind her, but for the most part, she was accepting of his orders and had given up trying to argue her way out of her sanctions.

Which was no more than Eeth had hoped to achieve by imposing this particular punishment. And yet, he was more than glad when the week was over and life was finally back to normal. Or for what counted as normal, in their chosen line of work.


End file.
